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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 David. St=ng 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240221 1 2290 
 
THE 
 
 OEATOi^ PAPEES 
 
 BY 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY, 
 
 Publishers. 
 
TROW'3 
 
 PRINTINQ AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY^ 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 COl^TEI^TS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Mom«T Jot 5 
 
 Tbb Great Mississippi Bubble 41 
 
 Don Juak — A Spectral Research 70 
 
 Broee; ok the Dutch Paradise. 78 
 
 Sketches in Paris, 1828 — My French Neighbor; the Englishman at Paris; Eng- 
 lish and French Character; the Tuileries and Windsor Castle; the Field of 
 
 Waterloo; Paris at the Restoration 83 
 
 American Researches in Italy — Life of Tasso; Recovery of a Lost Portrait of 
 
 Dante 101 
 
 The Takino of the Veil 106 
 
 The Charming Letorieres 113 
 
 The Early Experiences OF Ralph RiNGWOOD 116 
 
 The Seminolbs— Origin of the White, Red, and Black Men; the Conspiracy of 
 
 Neamathla ; 144 
 
 Letter prom Granada . .■ 155 
 
 Abdbraeman, Founder op the Dynasty of the Oumiades in Spain 161 
 
 The Widow's Ordeal 179 
 
 The Creole Village 189 
 
 A Contented Man US 
 
THE CEAYON PAPERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEOFFEET CEATOl^, GE]S"T. 
 
 MOUNT JOY: 
 
 OR SOME PASSAGES OUT OF THE LIFE OF A CASTLE-BUILDER. 
 
 I "WAS bom among romantic scenery, in one of the wildest 
 parts of the Hudson, which at that time was not so thickly 
 settled as at present. My father was descended from one of the 
 old Huguenot, families, that came over to this country on the 
 revocation of the edict of Nantz. He Mved in a styleSof easy, 
 rural independence, on a patrimonial estate that had been for 
 two or three generations in the family. He was an indolent, 
 good-natured man, who took the world as it went, and had a 
 kind of laughing philosophy, that parried all rubs and mis- 
 haps, and served him in the place of wisdom. This was the 
 part of his character least to my taste ; for I was of an enthusi- 
 astic, excitable temperament, prone j to kindle up with new 
 schemes 'and projects, and he was apt to dash my sallying 
 enthusiasm by some unlucky joke; so that whenever I was in 
 a glow with any sudden excitement, I stood in mortal dread of 
 his good-humor.. 
 
 Yet he indulged me in every vagary ; for I was an only son, 
 and of course a personage of importance in the household. I 
 had two sisters older than myself, and one younger. The 
 former were educated at New York, under the eye of a 
 maiden aunt; the latter remained at home, and was my 
 cherished playmate, the companion of my thoughts. We 
 were two imaginative Httle beings, of quick susceptibUity, 
 and prone to see wonders and mysteries in everything around 
 us. Scarce had we learned to read, when our mother made 
 us holiday presents of all the nursery Hterature of the day; 
 
6 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 ■which at that time consisted of little books covered with gilt 
 paper, adorned with "cuts," and filled with tales of fairies, 
 giants, and enchanters. What draughts of delightful fiction 
 did we then inhale ! My sister Sophy was of a soft and ten- 
 der nature. She would weep over the woes of the Children 
 in the Wood, or quake at the dark romance of Blue-Beard, 
 and the terrible mysteries of the blue chamber. Cut I was 
 all for enterprise and adventure. I burned to emulate the 
 deeds of that heroic prince who delivered the white cat from 
 her enchantment ; or he of no less royal blood, and doughty 
 enterprise, who broke the charmed slumber of the Heauty in 
 the Wood I 
 
 The house in wliich we lived was just the kind of place to 
 foster such propensities. It was a venerable mansion, half 
 villa, half farmhouse. The oldest part was of stone, with 
 loop-holes for musketry, having served as a family fortress 
 in the time of the Indians. To this there had been made vari- 
 ous additions, some of Tjrick, some of wood, according to the 
 exigencies of the moment; so that it was fuU of nooks and 
 crooks, and chambers of aU sorts and sizes. It was buried 
 among willows, elms, and cherry trees, and surrounded with 
 roses and hollyhocks, with honeysuckle and sweet-brier 
 clambering about every window. A brood of hereditary 
 pigeons sunned themselves upon the roof; hereditary swal- 
 lows and martins built about the eaves and chimneys; and 
 hereditary bees hummed about the flower-beds. 
 
 Under the influence of our story-books every object around 
 us now assumed a new character, and a charmed interest. 
 The wild flowers were no longer the mere ornaments of the 
 fields, or the resorts of the toilful bee ; they were the lurking 
 places of fairies. We would watch the humming-bird, as it 
 hovered around the trumpet creeper at our porch, and the 
 butterfly as it flitted up into the blue air, above the sunny 
 tree tops, and fancy them some of the tiny beings from fairy 
 land. I would call to mind all that I had read of Eobin Good- 
 feUow and his power of transformation. Oh how I envied him 
 that power ! How I longed to be able to compress my form 
 into utter littleness ; to ride the bold dragon-fly ; swing on the 
 tall bearded grass ; f oUow the ant into his subterraneous habi- 
 tation, or dive into the cavernous depths of the honeysuckle ! 
 
 While I was yet a mere chfld I was sent to a daily school, 
 about two miles distant. The school-house was on the edge of 
 a wood, close by a brook overhung with birches, alders, and 
 
MOUNT JOT. 7* 
 
 dwarf willows. We of the scliool who lived at some distance 
 came with our dinners put up in little baskets. In the in- 
 tervals of school hours we would gathor round a spring, 
 under a tuft of hazel-biishes, and have a kind of picnic; 
 interchanging the rustic dainties with which our provident 
 mothers had fitted us out. Then when our joyous repast was 
 over, and my companions were disposed for play, I would 
 draw forth one of my cherished story-books, stretch myself 
 on the greensward, and soon lose myseK in its bewitching 
 contents. 
 
 I became an oracle among my schoolmates on account of my 
 superior erudition, and soon imparted to them the contagion 
 of my infected fancy. Often in the evening, after school 
 hours, we would sit on the trunk of some fallen tree in tho 
 woods, and vie with each other in telling extravagant stories, 
 until the whip-poor-will began his nightly moaning, and the 
 fire-flies sparkled in the gloom. Then came the perilous jour- 
 ney homeward. What deUght we would take in getting up 
 wanton panics in some dusky part of the wood ; scampering 
 like frightened deer; pausing to take breath; renewing the 
 panic, and scampering off again, wild with fictitious terror ! 
 
 Our greatest trial was to pass a dark, lonely pool, covered 
 with pond-hlies, peopled with bull-frogs and water snakes, and 
 haunted by two white cranes. Oh ! the terrors of that pond ! 
 How our little hearts would beat as we approached it; what 
 fearful glances we would throw aroimd I And if by chance a 
 plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang of a buU-frog, 
 struck our ears, as we stole quietly by— away we sped, nor 
 paused until completely put of the woods. Then, when I 
 reached home what a world of adventures and imaginary 
 terrors would I have to relate to my sister Sophy ! 
 
 As I advanced in years, this turn of mind increased upon 
 me, and became more confirmed. I abandoned myself to the 
 impulses of a romantic imagination, which controlled my 
 studies, and gave a bias to all my habits. My father observed 
 me continually with a book in my hand, and satisfied himself 
 that I was a profound student; but what were my studies? 
 Works of fiction; tales of chivalry; voyages of discovery; 
 travels in the East ; everything, in short, that partook of adven- 
 ture and romance. I well remember with what zest I entered 
 upon that part of my studies which treated of the heathen 
 my-thology, and particularly of the sylvan deities. Then in- 
 deed my school books became dear to me. The neighborhood 
 
8 TUB CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 •was "well calculated to foster the reveries of a mind like mine. 
 It abounded with sohtary retreats, wild streams, solemn for- 
 ests, and silent valleys. I would ramble about for a whole day 
 with a volume of Ovid's Metamorphoses in my pocket, and 
 work myself into a kind of self-delusion, so as to identify the 
 sm-rounding scenes with those of which I had just been read- 
 ing. I woiald loiter about a brook that glided through the 
 shadowy depths of the forest, picturing it to myself the haiuit 
 of Naiads. I would steal round some bushy copse that opened 
 upon a glade, as if I expected to come suddenly upon Diana 
 and her nymphs, or to behold Pan and his satyrs bounding, 
 with whoop and haUoo, through the woodland. I would throw 
 myself, during the panting heats of a summer noon, under the 
 shade of some wide-spreading tree, and muse and dream away 
 the nours, in a state of mental intoxication. I drank in the 
 very hght of day, as nectar, and my soul seemed to bathe with 
 ecstasy in the deep blue of a summer sky. 
 
 In these wanderings, nothing occurred to jar my feelings, or 
 bring me back to the realities of Ufe. There is a repose in. our 
 mighty forests that gives full scope to the imagination. Now 
 and then I would hear the distant sound of the wood-cutter's 
 axe, or the crash of some tree which he had laid low ; but these 
 noises, echoing along the quiet landscape, could easily be 
 wrought by fancy into harmony with its illusions. In general, 
 however, the woody recesses of the neighborhood were pecu- 
 liarly wild and unfrequented. I could ramble for a whole 
 day, without coming upon any traces of cultivation. The 
 partridge of the wood scarcely seemed to shun my path, and 
 the squirrel, from his nut-tree, would gaze at mo for an 
 instant, with sparkling eye, as if wondering at the unwonted 
 intrusion. 
 
 I cannot help dwelling on this delicious period of my life; 
 when as yet I had known no sorrow, nor experienced any 
 worldly care. I have since studied much, both of books and 
 men, and of course have grown too wise to be so easily pleased; 
 yet with all my wisdom, I must confess I look back with a 
 secret feeling of regret to the days of happy ignorance, before 
 I had begun to be a philosopher. 
 
 It must be evident that I was in a hopeful training for one 
 who was to descend into the arena of life, and wrestle with the 
 world. The tutor, also, who superintended mv studies in the 
 
MOUNT JOT. 9 
 
 more advanced stage of my education was just fitted to com- 
 plete the fata morgana which was forming in my mind. His 
 name was Glencoe. He was a pale, melancholy-looking man, 
 about forty years of age ; a native of Scotland, MberaUy edu- 
 cated, and who had devoted himself to the instruction of youth 
 from taste rather than necessity; for, as he said, he loved the 
 human heart, and deUghted to study it in its earlier impulses. 
 My two elder sisters, having returned homo from a city board- 
 ing-school, were likewise placed under his care, to direct their 
 reading in history and belle-lettres. 
 
 We aU soon became atfeched to Glencoe. It is true, we were 
 at first somewhat prepossessed against him. His meagre, pal- 
 lid countenance, his broad pronunciation, his inattention to 
 the little forms of society, and an awkward and embarrassed 
 manner, on first acquaintance, were much against him; but 
 we soon discovered that under this unpromi£iing exterior existed 
 the kindest urbanity of temper ; the warmest sympathies ; the 
 most enthusiastic benevolence. His mind was ingenious and 
 acute. His reading had been various, but more abstruse than 
 profoimd ; his memory was stored, on all subjects, with facts, 
 theories, and quotations, and crowded with crude materials for 
 thinking. These, in a moment of excitement, would be, as it 
 were, melted down, and poured forth in the lava of a heated 
 imagination. At such moments, the change in the whole man 
 was wonderful. His meagre form would acquire a dignity and 
 grace ; his long, pale visage would flash with a hectic glow ; his 
 eyes would beam with intense speculation ; and there would be 
 pathetic tones and deep modulations in his voice, that delighted 
 the ear, and spoke movingly to the heart. 
 
 But what most endeared him to us was the kindness and 
 sympathy with which he entered into all our interests and 
 wishes. Instead of curbing and checking our young imagina- 
 tions with the reins of sober reason, he was a little too apt to 
 catch the impulse and be hurried away with us. He could not 
 withstand the excitement of any sally of feeling or fancy, and 
 was prone to lend heightening tints to the illusive coloring of 
 youthful anticipations. 
 
 Under his guidance my sisters and myself soon entered upon 
 a more extended range of studies ; but while they wandered, 
 with dehght-ed minds, through the wide field of history and 
 belles-lettres, a nobler walk was opened to my superior intel- 
 lect. 
 
 The mind of Glencoe presented a singular mixture of phi- 
 
10 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 losophy and poetry. He was fond of metaphysics and prone 
 to indulge in abstract speculations, though his metaphysics 
 were somewhat fine spun and fanciful, and his speculations 
 were apt to partake of what my father most irreverently 
 termed "humbug." For my part, I delighted in them, and 
 the more especially because they set my father to sleep and 
 completely confounded my sisters. I entered with my accus- 
 tomed eagerness into this new branch of study. Metaphysics 
 were now my passion. My sisters attempted to accompany 
 me, but they soon faltered, and gave out before they had got 
 half way through Smith's Theory of the Moral Sentiments. I, 
 however, went on, exulting in my strength. Glencoe supplied 
 me with books, and I devoured them with appetite, if not diges- 
 tion. We walked and talked together under the trees before 
 the house, or sat apart, like Milton's angels, and held high con- 
 verse upon themes beyond the grasp of ordinary intellects. 
 Glencoe possessed a kind of philosophic chivalry, in imitation 
 of the old peripatetic sages, and was continually dreaming of 
 romantic enterprises in morals, and splendid systems for the 
 improvement of society. He had a fanciful mode of illustrat- 
 ing abstract subjects, peculiarly to my taste; clothing them 
 with the language of poetry, and throwing round them almost 
 the magic hues of fiction. "How charming," thought T, "is 
 divine philosophy ;" not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools sup- 
 pose, 
 
 " But a perpetual feast o£ neotar'd sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 
 I felt a wonderful self-complacency at being on such excel- 
 lent terms with a man whom I considered on a parallel with 
 the sages of antiquity, and looked down with a sentiment of 
 pity on the feebler intellects of my sisters, who could compre- 
 hend nothing of metaphysics. It is true, when I attempted to 
 study them by myself, I was apt to get in a fog; but when 
 Glencoe came to my aid, everything was soon as clear to ine 
 as day. My ear drank in the beauty of his words ; my imagi- 
 nation was dazzled with the splendor of his illustrations. It 
 caught up the sparlding sands of poetry that glittered through 
 his speculations, and mistook them for the golden ore of wis- 
 dom. Struck with the facility with which I seemed to imbibe 
 and relish the most abstract doctrines, I conceived a still higher 
 opinion of my mental powers, and was convinced that I also 
 ■was a philosopher. 
 
MOUNT JOY. II 
 
 I was now verging toward man's estate, and though my edu- 
 cation had been extremely irregular — ^follswing the caprices of 
 
 my humor, which I mistook for the impulses of my genius 
 
 yet I was regarded with wonder and deUght by my mother and 
 sisters, who considered me almost as wise and infalUble as I 
 considered myself. This high opinion of me was strengthened 
 by a declamatory habit, which made me an oracle and orator 
 at the domestic board. The time was now at hand, however 
 that was to put my philosophy to the test. 
 
 "We had passed through a long winter, and the spring at 
 length opened upon us with unusual sweetness. The soft 
 serenity of the weather; the beauty of the surroimding coun- 
 try; the joyous notes of the birds; the bahny breath of flower 
 and blossom, all combined to fill my bosom with indistinct sen- 
 sations, and nameless wishes. Amid the soft seductions of the 
 season, I lapsed into a state of utter indolence, both of body 
 and mind. 
 
 Philosophy had lost its charms for me. Metaphysics — faugh I 
 I tried to study; took down volume after volume, ran my eye 
 vacantly over a few pages, and threw them by with distaste. 
 I loitered about the house, with my hands in my pockets, and 
 an air of complete vacancy. Something was necessary to make 
 me happy; but what was that something? I sauntered to the 
 apartments of my sisters, hoping their conversation might 
 amuse me. They had walked out, and the room was vacant. 
 On the table lay a volume which they had been reading. It 
 was a novel. I had never read a novel, having conceived a 
 contempt for works of the kind, from hearing them universally 
 condemned. It is true, I had remarked that they were as uni- 
 veisally read ; but I considered them beneath the attention of 
 a philosopher, and never would venture to read them, lest I 
 should lessen my mental superiority in the eyes of my sisters. 
 Nay, I had taken up a work of the kind now and then, when I 
 knew my sisters were observing me, looked into it for a mo- 
 ment, and then laid it down, with a sUght supercilious smile. 
 On the present occasion, out of mere listlessness, I took up the 
 volume and turned over a few of the first pages. I thought I 
 heard some one coming, and laid it down. I was mistaken ; no 
 one was near, and what I had read, tempted m.y curiosity to 
 read a little further. I leaned against a window-frame, and in 
 a few minutes was completely lost in the story. How long I 
 stood there reading I know not, but I believe for nearly two 
 hours. Suddenly I heard my sisters on the stairs, when I 
 
12 THE CRAYOHr PAPERS. 
 
 thrust the book into my bosom, and the two other volumes 
 which lay near into my pockets, and hurried out of tho house 
 to my beloved woods. Here I remained all day beneath the 
 trees, bewildered, bewitched, devouring the contents of these 
 dehcious volumes, and only returned to the house when it was 
 too dark to peruse their pages. 
 
 This novel finished, I replaced it in my sisters' apartment, 
 and looked for others. Their stock was ample, for they had 
 brought home all that were current in the city ; but my appe- 
 tite demanded an immense supply. AU this course of reading 
 was carried on clandestinely, for I was a little ashamed of it, 
 and fearful that my wisdom might be called in question; but 
 this very privacy gave it additional zest. It was " bread eaten 
 in secret ;" it had the charm of a private amour. 
 
 But think what must have been the effect of such a course of 
 reading on a youth of my temperament and turn of mind; in- 
 dulged, too, amid romantic scenery and in the romantic season 
 of the year. It seemed as if I had entered upon a new scene 
 of existence. A train of combustible feeUngs were Mghted up 
 in me, and my soul was all tenderness and passion. Never 
 was youth more completely love-sick, though as yet it was a 
 mere general sentiment, and wanted a definite object. Unfor- 
 tunately, our neighborhood was particularly deficient in female 
 society, and I languished in vain for some divinity to whom I 
 might ofEer up this most uneasy burden of affections. I was at 
 one time seriously enamored of a lady whom I saw occasion- 
 ally in my rides, reading at the window of a country-seat ; and 
 actually serenaded her with my flute ; when, to my confusion, 
 I discovered that she was old enough to be my mother. It was 
 a sad damper to my romance ; especially as my father heard 
 of it, and made it the subject of one of those household jokes 
 which he was apt to serve up at every meal-time. 
 
 I soon recovered from this check, however, but it was only 
 to relapse into a state of amorous excitement. I passed whole 
 days in the fields, and along the brooks ; for there is something 
 in the tender passion that makes us alive to the beauties of 
 nature. A soft sunshiny morning infused a sort of rapture 
 into my breast. I flung open my arms, like the Grecian youth 
 in Ovid, as if I would take in and embrace the balmy atmos- 
 phere.* The song of the birds melted me to tenderness. I 
 would lie by the side of some rivulet for hours, and form gar- 
 
 * Ovid's " Metamorphoses," Book vil 
 
MOUNTJOT. 13 
 
 lands of tho flowere on its banks, and muse on ideal beauties, 
 and sigh from the crowd of undefined emotions that swelled 
 my bosom. 
 
 In this state of amorous delirium, I was stroUing one morn- 
 ing along a beautiful wild brook, which I had discovered in a 
 glen. There was one place where a small waterfall, leaping 
 from among rocks into a natural basin, made a scene such as a 
 poet might have chosen as the haimt of some shy Naiad. It 
 was here I usually retired to banquet on my novels. In visiting 
 the place this morning I traced distinctly, on the margin of tho 
 basin, which was of fine clear sand, the prints of a female foot 
 of the most slender and dehcate proportions. This was suflS- 
 cient for an imagination like mine. Eobinson Crusoe himself, 
 when he discovered the print of a savage foot on the beach of 
 his lonely island, could not have been more suddenly assaUed 
 with thick-coming fancies. 
 
 I endeavored to track the steps, but they only passed for a 
 few paces along the fine sand, and then were lost among tho 
 herbage. I remained gazing in reverie upon this passing trace 
 of lovehnsBS. It evidently was not made by any of my sisters, 
 for they knew nothing of this haunt; beside, the foot was 
 smaller than theirs; it was remarkable for its beautiful deli- 
 cacy. 
 
 My eye accidentally caught two or three half -withered wild 
 flowers lying on the ground. The unknown nymph had 
 doubtless dropped them from her bosom 1 Here was a new 
 document of taste and sentiment. I treasured them up as 
 invaluable rehcs. The place, too, where I found them, was 
 remarkably picturesque, and the most beautiful part of the 
 brook. It was overhung with a fine elm, entwined with grape- 
 vines. She who could select such a spot, who could delight in 
 wild brooks, and wild flowers, and silent solitudes, must have 
 fancy, and feeling, and tendei-ness; and with aU these quahties, 
 she must be beautiful ! 
 
 But who could be this Unknown, that had thus passed by, as 
 in a morning dream, leaving merely flowers and fairy footsteps 
 to tell of her lovehness? There was a mystery in it that be- 
 wildered me. It was so vague and disembodied, hke those 
 "airy tongues that syllable men's names" in solitude. Every 
 attempt to solve the mystery was vain. I could hear of no 
 being in the neighborhood to whom this trace could be 
 ascribed. I haunted the spot, and became daily more and 
 more enamored. Never, surely, was passion more pure and 
 
14 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 spiritual, and never lover in more dubious situation. My case 
 could be compared only to that of the amorous prince in the 
 fairy tale of Cinderella ; but he had a glass shpper on which to 
 lavish his tenderness. I, alas ! was in. love with a footstep ! 
 The imagination is alternately a cheat and a dupe; nay, 
 
 more, it is the most subtle of cheats, for it cheats itself and 
 becomes the dupe of its own delusions. It conjures up "airy 
 nothings," gives to them a "local habitation and a name,'' and 
 then bows to their control as implicitly as though they were 
 realities. Such was now my case. The good Numa could not 
 more thoroughly have persuaded himself that the nymph 
 Egeria hovered about her sacred fountain and communed with 
 him in spirit, than I had deceived myself into a kind of vision- 
 ary intercoiu-so with the airy phantom fabricated in my brain. 
 I constructed a rustic seat at the foot of the tree where I had 
 discovered the footsteps. I made a kind of bower there, where 
 I used to pass my mornings reading poetry and romances. I 
 carved hearts and darts on the tree, and hung it with garlands. 
 My heart was fuU to overflowing, and wanted some faithful 
 bosom into which it might relieve itself. What is a lover 
 without a confidante? I thought at once of my sister Sophy, 
 my early playmate, the sister of my affections. She was so 
 reasonable, too, and of such correct feelings, always Hstening 
 to my words as oracular sayings, and admiring my scraps of 
 poetry as the very inspirations of the muse. From such a de- 
 voted, such a rational being, what secrets could I have? 
 
 I accordingly took her one morning to my favorite retreat. 
 She looked around, with dehghted sm^prise, upon the rustic 
 seat, the bower, the tree carved with emblems of the tender 
 passion. She turned her eyes upon me to inquire the meaning. 
 
 " O^ Sophy," exclaimed I, claspiag both her hands in mine, 
 and lo^_dng earnestly in her face, " I am iu love." 
 
 She started with surprise. 
 
 "Sit down," said I, "and I wiU tell you all." 
 
 She seated herself upon the ructic bench, and I went into a 
 fuU history of the footstep, with all the associations of idea 
 that i^ad been conjured up by my imagination. 
 
 S iphy was enchanted ; it was like a fairy tale ; she had read 
 of s' "ih mysterious visitationc in books, and the loves thus con- 
 ceivfcti were always for beings of superior order, and were 
 always happy. She caught the illusion in aU its force; her 
 cheek ^-lowed; her eye brightened. 
 
MOUNTJOT. 15 
 
 " 1 dare say she's pretty," said Sophy. 
 
 "Pretty!" echoed I, "she is beautiful!" I ■went through all 
 the reasoning by which I had logically proved the fact to my 
 own satisfaction. I dwelt upon the evidences of her taste, her 
 sensibility to the beauties of nature ; her soft meditative habit, 
 that delighted in solitude. " Oh," said I, clasping my hands, 
 "to have such a companion to wander through these scenes; 
 to sit with her by this murmuring stream ; to wreathe garlands 
 round her brows ; to hear the music of her voice mingling with 
 the whisperings of these groves ; to — " 
 
 "DeKghtful! deUghtful !" cried Sophy; "what a sweet crea- 
 ture she must be ! She is just the friend I want. How I shall 
 dote upon her! Oh, my dear brother! you must not keep her 
 all to yourself. You must let me have some share of her!" 
 
 I caught her to my bosom: " You shall— you shall!" cried I, 
 " my dear Sophy; we will all hve for each other!" 
 
 The conversation with Sophy heightened the Ulusions of my 
 mind; and the manner in which she had treated my day- 
 dream identified it with facts and persons and gave it stUl 
 more the stamp of reahty. I walked about as one in a trance, 
 heedless of the world around, and lapped in an elysium of the 
 fancy. 
 
 In this mood I met one morning with Glencoe. He accosted, 
 me with his usual smile, and was proceeding with some gene- 
 ral observations, but paused and fixed on me an inquiring eye. 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" said he, "you seem agi- 
 tated ; has anything in particular happened?" 
 
 "Nothing," said I, hesitating; " at least nothing worth com- 
 municating to you." 
 
 "Nay, my dear young friend," said he, "whatever is of 
 sufficient importance to agitate you is worthy of being com- 
 municated to me." 
 
 "Well; but my thoughts are running on what you would 
 think a frivolous subject." 
 
 "No subject is frivolous that has the power to awaken 
 strong feelings." 
 
 "What think you," said I, hesitating, "what think you of 
 love?" 
 
 Glencoe almost started at the question. "Do you call that 
 a frivolous subject?" replied he. "Beheve me, there is none 
 fraught with such deep, such vital interest. If you talki 
 
16 THE CRATON PAPERS. 
 
 indeed, of the capricious inclination awakened by the mere 
 charm of perishable beauty, I grant it to be idle in the ex- 
 treme; but that love -which springs from the concordant 
 sympathies of virtuous hearts; that love which is awakened 
 by the perception of moral excellence, and fed by meditation 
 on intellectual as well as personal beauty; that is a passion 
 which refines and ennobles the human heart. Oh, where is 
 there a sight more nearly approaching to the iutercourse of 
 angels, than that of two young beings, free from the sins 
 and follies of the world, mingling pure thoughts, and looks, 
 and feehngs, and becoming as it were soul of one soul and 
 heart of one heart! How exquisite the silent converse that 
 they hold ; the soft devotion of the eye, that needs no words 
 to make it eloquent! Yes, my friend, if there be anything 
 in this weary world worthy of heaven, it is the pure bliss of 
 such a mutual affection !" 
 
 The words of my worthy tutor overcame all farther re- 
 servo. "Mr. Glencoe," cried I, blushing still deeper, "I am 
 in love." 
 
 "And is that what you were ashamed to teU me? Oh, 
 never seek to conceal from your friend so important a secret. 
 If your passion be unworthy, it is for the steady hand of 
 friendship to pluck it forth ; if honorable, none but an enemy 
 would seek to stifle it. On nothing does the character and 
 happiness so much depend as on the first affection of the 
 heart. Were you caught by some fleeting and superficial 
 charm — a bright eye, a blooming cheek, a soft voice, or a 
 voluptuous form — I woidd warn you to beware ; I would teU 
 you that beauty is but a passing gleam of the morning, a 
 perishable flower; that accident may becloud and blight it, 
 and that at best it must soon pass away. But were you in 
 love with such a one as I could describe ; young in years, but 
 still yoimger in feelings ; lovely in person, but as a type of the 
 mind's beauty ; soft in voice, in token of gentleness of spirit ; 
 blooming in countenance, hke the rosy tints of morning kind- 
 ling with the promise of a genial day ; and eye beaming with 
 the benignity of a happy heart ; a cheerful temper, alive to all 
 kind impulses, and frankly diffusing its own f ehcity ; a self- 
 poised mind, that needs not lean on others for slipport; an ele- 
 gant taste, that can embeUish solitude, and furnish out its own 
 enjoyments—" 
 
 "My dear sir," cried I, for I could contain myself no longer, 
 " you have described the very person!" 
 
MOUNTJOT. 17 
 
 "Why, then, my dear young friend," said he, affectionately 
 pressing my hand, "in Grod's name, love on!" 
 
 For the remainder of the day I was in some such state of 
 dreamy beatitude as a Turk is said to enjoy when under the 
 influence of opium. It must be already manifest how prone I 
 was to bewilder myself with picturings of the fancy, so as to 
 conf oimd them with existing realities. In the present instance, 
 Sophy and Glencoe had contributed to promote the transient 
 delusion. Sophy, dear girl, had as usual joined with me ia 
 my castle-building, and indulged in the same train of imagin- 
 ings, whUe Glencofe, duped by my enthusiasm, firmly believed 
 that I spoke of a being I had seen and known. By their sym- 
 pathy with my feelings they in a manner became associated 
 with the Unknown in my mind, and thus linked her with the 
 circle of my intimacy. 
 
 In the evening, our family party was assembled in the hall, 
 to enjoy the refreshing breeze. Sophy was playing some 
 favorite Scotch airs on the piano, while Glencoe, seated apart, 
 with his forehead resting on his hand, was buried in one of 
 those pensive reveries that made him so interestipg to me. 
 
 "What a fortunate being I am!" thought I, "blessed with 
 such a sister and such a friend ! I have only to find out this 
 amiable Unknown, to wed her, and be happy ! What a para- 
 dise win be my home, graced with a partner of such exquisite 
 refinement! It wiU be a perfect fairy bower, buried among 
 sweets and roses. Sophy shall live with us, and be the com- 
 panion of all our enjoyment. Glencoe, too, shall no more be 
 the solitary beiag that he now appears. He shall have a 
 home with us. He shall have his study, where, when he 
 pleases, he may shut himself up from the world, and bury him- 
 self in his own reflections. His retreat ehaU be sacred; no 
 one shall intrude there; no one but myself, who wiQ visit 
 TiiTn now and then, in his seclusion, where we will devise 
 grand schemes together for the improvement of mankind. 
 How delightfully our days wfll pass, in a round of rational 
 pleasures and elegant employments ! Sometimes we will have 
 music; sometimes we will read; sometimes we will wander 
 through the flower garden, when I wiU smile with complacency 
 on every flower my wife has planted ; while in the long winter 
 evenings the ladies wiU sit at their work, and hston with 
 hushed attention to Glencoe and myself, as we discuss tha 
 abstruse doctrines of metaphysics." j ■ 
 
18 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 From this delectable reverie, I was startled by my father'3 
 slapping me on the shoulder: " What possesses the lad?" cried 
 he; "here have I been speaking to you half a dozen times, 
 ■without rsceiving an answer." 
 
 "Pardon me, sir," replied I; "I was so completely lost in 
 thought, that I did not hear you." 
 
 "Lost in thought! And pray what were you thinking of? 
 Some of your philosophy, I suppose." 
 
 "Upon my word," said my sister Charlotte, with an arch 
 laugh, "I suspect Harry's in love again." 
 
 "And i£ I were in love, Charlotte," said I, somewhat net- 
 tled, and recollecting Glencoe's enthusiastic' eulogy of the pas- 
 sion, " if I were in love, is that a matter of jest and laughter? 
 Is the tenderest and most fervid affection that can animate 
 the hxunan breast, to be made a matter of cold-hearted ridi- 
 cule?" 
 
 My sister colored. " Certainly not, brother!— nor did I mean 
 to make it so, or to say anything that should wound your feel- 
 ings. Had I really suspected you had formed some genuine 
 attachment, it would have been sacred in my eyes ; but — ^but, " 
 said she, smiling, as if at some whimsical recollection, "I 
 thought that you — you might be indulging in another little 
 freak of the imagination." 
 
 " I'll wager any money," cried my father, " he has fallen iu 
 love again with some old lady at a window !" 
 
 " Oh no !" cried my dear sister Sophy, with the most gracious 
 warmth; "she is young and beautiful." 
 
 "From what I understand," said Glencoe, rousing himself, 
 "she must be lovely in miad as in person." 
 
 I found my friends were getting me into a fine scrape. I 
 began to perspire at every pore, and felt my ears tingle. 
 
 "Well, but," cried my father, "who is she? — ^what is she? 
 Let us hear something about her." 
 
 This was no time to explain so delicate a matter. I caught 
 up my hat, and vanished out of the house. 
 
 The moment I was in the open air, and alone, my heart up- 
 braided me. Was this respectful treatment to my father — to 
 stich a father, too — who had always regarded me as the pride 
 of his age— the staff of his hopes ? It is true, he was apt some- 
 times to laugh at m.y enthusiastic flights, and did not treat my 
 philosophy with due respect ; but when had he ever thwarted 
 a wish of my heart ? Was I then to act with reserve toward 
 him, in a matter which might affect the whole current of my 
 
MOUNTJOY. 19 
 
 future life? "I have done wrong," thought I; "but it is not 
 too late to remedy it. I will hasten back and open my whole 
 heart to my father I" 
 
 I returned accordingly, and was just on the point of entering 
 the house, with my heart full of filial piety, and a contrite 
 speech upon my Mps, when I heard a burst of obstreperoug 
 laughter from my father, and a loud tittei! from my two elder 
 sisters. 
 
 "A footstep!" shouted he, as soon as he could recover him- 
 self; "in love with a footstep! Why, this beats the old lady at 
 the window !" And then there was another appalling bui-st of 
 laughter. Had it been a clap of thunder, it could hardly have 
 astounded me more completely. Sophy, in the simpMcity of 
 her heart, had told all, and had set my father's risible pro- 
 pensities in full action. 
 
 Never was poor mortal so thoroughly crestfallen as myself. 
 The whole delusion was at an end. I drew off silently from the 
 house, shrinking smaller and smaller at every fresh peal of 
 laughter; and wandering about until the family had retired, 
 stole quietly to my bed. Scarce any sleep, however, visited 
 my eyes that night! I lay overwhelmed with mortification, 
 and meditating how I might meet the family in the morning. 
 The idea of ridicule was always intolerable to me; but to 
 endure it on a subject by which my feelings had been so much 
 excited, seemed worse than death. I almost determined, at 
 one time, to get up, saddle my horse, and ride off, I knew not 
 whither. 
 
 At length I came to a resolution. Before going down to 
 breakfast, I sent for Sophy, and employed her as ambassador 
 to treat formally in the matter. I insisted that the subject 
 should be buried in obhvion ; otherwise I would not show my 
 face at table. It was readily agreed to; for not one of the 
 family woiild have given me pain for the world. They faith- 
 fully kept their promise. Not a word was Said of the matter; 
 but there were wry faces, and suppressed titters, that went to 
 my soul; and whenever my father looked me in the face, it 
 was with such a tragi-comical leer— such an attempt to pull 
 down a serious brow upon a whimsical mouth— that I had a 
 thousand times rather he had laughed outright. 
 
 For a day or two after the mortifying occurrence just re- 
 lated, I kept as much as possible out of the way of the family, 
 
20 THE CBA YON PAPERS. 
 
 and wandered about the fields and woods by myself. I was 
 sadly out of tune ; my feelings were all jarred and unstrung. 
 The birds sang from every grove, but I took no pleasure in 
 their melody; and the flowers of the field bloomed unheeded 
 around me. To be crossed in love, is bad enough; but then 
 one can fly to poetry for relief, and turn one's woes to account 
 in soul-subduing stanzas. But to have one's whole passion, 
 object and aU, annihilated, dispelled, proved to be such stuff as 
 dreams are made of — or, worse than aU, to be turned into a 
 proverb and a jest — what consolation is there in such a case ? 
 
 I avoided the fatal brook where I had seen the footstep. My 
 favorite resort was now the banks of the Hudson, where I sat 
 upon the rocks and mused upon the cu'-rent that dimpled by, 
 or the waves that laved the shore; or watched the bright 
 mutations of the clouds, and the shifting lights and shadows 
 of the distant mountain. By degrees a returning serenity 
 stole over my feelings ; and a sigh now and then, gentle and 
 easy, and unattended by pain, showed that my heart was re- 
 covering its susceptibility. 
 
 As I was sitting in this musing mood my eye became gra- 
 dually fixed upon an object that was borne along by the tide. 
 It proved to be a little pinnace, beautifully modelled, and 
 gayly painted and decorated. It was an unusual sight in this 
 neighborhood, which was rather lonely ; indeed, it was rare to 
 see any pleasure-barks in this part of the river. As it drew 
 nearer, I perceived that there was no one on board ; it had 
 apparently drifted from its anchorage. There was not a breath 
 of air ; the little bark came floating along on the glassy stream, 
 wheeling about with the eddies. At length it ran aground, 
 almost at the foot of the rock on which I was seated. I de- 
 scended to the margin of the river, and drawing the bark to 
 shore, admired its hght and elegant proportions and the taste 
 with which it was fitted up. The benches were covered with 
 cushions, and its long streamer was of silk. On one of the 
 cushions lay a lady's glove, of delicate size and shape, with 
 beautifully tapered fingers. I instantly seized it and thrust it 
 in my bosom; it seemed a match for the fairy footstep that 
 had so fascinated me. 
 
 In a moment all the romance of my bosom was again in a 
 glow. Here was one of the very incidents of fairy tale ; a bark 
 sent by some invisible power, some good genius, or benevolent 
 fairy, to waft me to some delectable adventure. I recollected 
 somexhing of an enchanted bark, drawn by white swans, that 
 
MOTTNTJOT. 21 
 
 conveyed a knight down the current of the Rhine, on some 
 enterprise connected -with love and heauty. The glove, too, 
 showed that there was a lady fair concerned in the present 
 adventure. It might be a gauntlet of defiance, to dare me to 
 the enterprise. 
 
 In the spirit of romance and the whim of the moment, I 
 sprang on board, hoisted the light sail, and pushed from shore. 
 As if breathed by some presiding power, a light breeze at that 
 moment sprang up, swelled 5ut the sail, and dallied with the 
 silken streamer. For a time I glided along under steep umbra- 
 geous banks, or across deep sequestered bays; and then stood 
 out over a wide expansion of the river toward a high rocky 
 promontory. It was a lovely evening; the sun was setting in 
 a congregation of clouds that threw the whole heavens in a 
 glow, and were reflected in the river. I deUghted myself with 
 aU kinds of fantastic fancies, as to what enchanted island, or 
 mystic bower, or necromantic palace, I was to be conveyed by 
 the fairy bark. 
 
 In the revel of my fancy I had not noticed that the gorgeous 
 ■ congregation of clouds which had so much delighted me was 
 in fact a gatheiing thunder-gust. I perceived the truth too 
 late. The clouds came hurrying on, darkening as they 
 advanced. The whole face of nature was suddenly changed, 
 and assumed that baleful and livid tint, predictive of a storm. 
 I tried to gain the shore, but before I could reach it a blast of 
 wind struck the water and lashed it at once into foam. The 
 next moment it overtook the^ boat. Alas ! I was nothing of a 
 sailor; and my protecting fairy forsook me in the moment of 
 peril. I endeavored to lower the sail; but in so doing I had to 
 quit the helm ; the bark was overtiomed in an instant, and I 
 was thrown into the water. I endeavored to cling to the 
 wreck, but missed my hold; being a poor swimmer, I soon 
 found myself sinldng, but grasped a light oar that was floating 
 by me. It was not sufficient for my support ; I again sank 
 beneath the surface ; there was a rushing and bubbHng soimd 
 in my ears, and aU sense forsook me. 
 
 How long I remained insensible, I know not. I had a con- 
 fused notio.i of being moved and tossed about, and of hearing 
 strange beings and strange voices around me ; but all was like 
 a hideous dream. When I at length recovered full conscious- 
 ness and perception, I found myself in bed in a spacious cham- 
 
22 THE CRATON ■I'APERS. 
 
 ber, furnished with more taste than I had been accustomed to. 
 The bright rays of a morning sun were intercepted by curtains 
 of a deUcate rose color, that gave a soft, voluptuc^us tinge to 
 every object. Not far from my bed, on a classic tripod, was a 
 basket of beautiful exotic flowers, breathing the sweetest fra- 
 grance. 
 
 ' ' Where am I ? How came I here ?" 
 
 I tasked my mind to catch at some previous event, from 
 Which I might trace up the thread of existence to the present 
 tooment. By degrees I called to mind the fairy pinnace, my 
 daring embarkation, my adventurous voyage, and my disas- 
 trous shipwreck. Beyond that, all was chaos. How came I 
 here? What unknown region had I landed upon? The people 
 that iohabited it must be gentle and amiable, and of elegant 
 tastes, for they loved downy beds, fragrant flowers, and rose- 
 colored curtains. 
 
 While I lay thus musiag, the tones of a harp reached my ear. 
 Presently they were accompanied by a female voice. It came 
 from the room below; but in the profound stUlness of my 
 chamber not a modulation was lost. My sisters were all con- 
 sidered good musicians, and sang very tolerably ; but I had 
 never heard a voice Kke this. There was no attempt at diffi- 
 cult execution, or striking effect; but there were exquisite 
 inflections, and tender turns, which art could not reach. 
 Nothing but feeUng and sentiment coidd produce tbem. It 
 was soul breathed forth ia sound. I was always alive to the 
 influence of music; indeed, I was susceptible of voluptuous 
 influences of every kind— sounds, colors, shapes, and fra- 
 grant odors. I was the very slave of sensation. 
 
 I lay mute and breathless, and drank in every note of this 
 siren strain. It thrflled through my whole frame, and filled 
 my soul with melody and love. I pictured to myself, with 
 curious logic, the form of the unseen musician. Such melodi- 
 ous sounds and exquisite inflections could only be produced by 
 organs of the most delicate flexibility. Such organs do not 
 belong to coarse, vulgar forms; they are the harmonious 
 results of fair proportions and admirable symmetry. A being 
 so organized must be lovely. 
 
 Again my busy imagination was at work. I called to 
 mind the Arabian story of a prince, borne away during sleep 
 by a good genius, to the distant abode of a princess of rav- 
 ishing beauty. I do not pretend to say that I believed in hav- 
 ing experienced a similar transportation ; but it was my in vet- 
 
MOUNT JOT. 23 
 
 erate habit to cheat myself with fancies of the kiiid, and to 
 give the tinge of illusion to surrounding realities. 
 
 The witching sound had ceased, but its vibrations still played 
 round my heart, and filled it with a tumult of soft emotions. 
 At this moment, a seK-upbraiding pang shot through my 
 bosom. "Ah, recreant!" a voice seemed to exclaim, "is this 
 the stability of thine affections? What ! hast thou so soon for- 
 gotten the nymph of the fountain? Has one song, idly piped 
 in thine ear, been sufficient to charm away the cherished ten- 
 derness of a whole summer?" 
 
 The wise may smile —but I am in a confiding mood, and must 
 confess my weakness. I felt a degree of compunction at this 
 sudden infldehty, yet I could not resist the power of present 
 fascination. My peace of mind was destroyed by conflicting 
 claims. The nymph of the fountain came over my memory, 
 with all the associations of fairy footsteps, shady groves, soft 
 echoes, and wild streamlets; but this new passion was pro- 
 duced by a strain of soul-subduing melody, still lingering in my 
 ear, aided by a downy bed, fragrant flowers, and rose-colored 
 curtains. " Unhappy youth !" sighed I to myself, "distracted 
 by such rival passions, and the empire of thy heart thus vio- 
 lently contested by the sound of a voice, and the print of a 
 footstep !" 
 
 I had not remained long in this mood, when I heard the door 
 of the room gently opened. I turned my head to see what 
 inhabitant of this enchanted palace should appear; whether 
 page in green, hideous dwarf, or haggard fairy. It was my 
 own man Scipio. He advanced with cautious step, and was 
 dehghted, as he said, to find me so much myself again. My 
 first questions were as to where I was and how I came there? 
 Scipio told me a long story of his having been fishing in a 
 canoe at the time of my hare-brained cruise ; of his noticing 
 the gathering squaU, and my impending danger; of his has- 
 tening to join me, but arriving just in time to snatch me from 
 a watery grave; of the great. difficulty in restoring me to ani- 
 mation; and of my being subsequently conveyed, in a state of 
 insensibility, to this mansion. 
 
 "But where am I?" was the reiterated demand. 
 
 " In the house of Mr. SomerviUe." 
 
 " SomerviUe— SomerviUe !" I recoUected to have heard that 
 a gentleman of that name had recently taken up his residence 
 
24 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 at some distance from my father's abode, on the opposite side 
 of the Hudson. He was commonly known by the name of 
 "French Somcrville," from having passed part of his early life 
 in France, and from his exhibiting traces of French taste in 
 his mode of living, and the arrangements of his house. In 
 fact, it was in his pleasure-boat, which had got adrift, that I 
 had made my fanciful and disastrous cruise. All this was sim- 
 ple, straightforward matter of fact, and threatened to demolish 
 aU the cobweb romance I had been spinning, when fortunately 
 I again heard the tinkUng of a harp. I raised myself in bed, 
 and listened. 
 
 "Scipio," said I, with some little hesitation, "I heard some 
 one singing just now. Who was it?" 
 
 " Oh, that was Miss Julia." 
 
 "Julia! Juha! Delightful ! what a name ! And, Scipio — ^is 
 she— is she pretty?" 
 
 Scipio grumed from ear to ear. " Except Miss Sophy, she 
 was the most beautif lil young lady he had ever seen. " 
 
 I shoiild observe, that my sister Sophia was considered by 
 all the iservants a paragon of perfection. 
 
 Scipio now offered to remove the basket of flowers ; he was 
 afraid their odor might be too powerful; but Miss JuMa had 
 given them that morning to be placed in my room. 
 
 These flowers, then, had been gathered by the fairy fingers 
 of my unseen beauty ; that sweet breath which had fiUed my 
 ear with melody had passed over them. I made Scipio hand 
 them to rae, culled several of the most dehcate, and laid them 
 on my bosom. 
 
 Mr. Somerville paid me a visit not long afterward. He was 
 an interesting study for me, for he was the father of my unseen 
 beauty, and probably resembled her. I scanned him closely. 
 He was a tall and elegant man, with an open, affable manner, 
 and an erect and graceful carriage. His eyes were bluish-gray, 
 and though not dark, yet at times were sparkling and expres- 
 sive. His hair was dressed and powdered, and being hghtly 
 combed up from his forehead, added to the loftiness of hi 
 aspect. He was fluent ia discourse, but his conversation had 
 the quiet tone of poHshed society, without any of those bold 
 flights of thought, and picturings of fancy, which I so much 
 admired. 
 
 My imagination was a httle puzzled, at first, to make out of 
 this assemblage of personal and mental qualities, a picture that 
 ghould harmonize with my previous idea of the fair unseen. 
 
MOUNTJOT. 25 
 
 By dint, however, of selecting what it liked, and giving a touch 
 here and a touch there, it soon fiu-nished out a satisfactory 
 portrait. 
 
 " Juha must be tall," thought I, " and of exquisite grace and 
 dignity. She is not quite so courtly as her father, for she has 
 been brought up in the retirement of the country. Neither is 
 she of such vivacious deportment; for* the tones of her voice 
 are soft and plaintive, and she loves pathetic music. She is 
 rather pensive — yet not too pensive ; just what is called inter- 
 esting. Her eyes are hke her father's, except that they are of 
 a purer blue, and more tender and languishing. She has Mght 
 hair — ^not exactly flaxen, for I do not hke flaxen hair, but 
 between that and auburn. In a word, she is a tall, elegant, 
 imposing, languishing, blue-eyed, romantic-looking beauty." 
 And having thus finished her picture, I felt ten times more in. 
 love with her than ever. 
 
 I felt so much recovered that I would at once have left 
 my room, but Mr. SomervUle objected to it. He had sent 
 early word to my family of my safety ; and my father arrived 
 in the course of the morning. He was shocked at learning the 
 risk I had run, but rejoiced to find me so much restored, and 
 was warm in his thanks to Mr. SomervUle for his kindness. 
 The other only required, in return, that I might remain, two or 
 three days as his guest, to give time for my recovery, and for 
 oiu" forming a closer acquaintance ; a request which my father 
 readily guanted. Scipio accordingly accompanied my father 
 home, and returned with a supply of clothes, and with afEec- 
 tionate letters from my mother and sisters. 
 
 The next morning, aided by Scipio, I made my toilet with 
 rather more care than usual, and descended the stairs with 
 some trepidation, eager to see the original of the portrait which 
 had been so completely pictured in my imagination. 
 
 On entering the parlor, I found it deserted. Like the rest of 
 the house, it was furnished in a foreign style. The curtains 
 were of French silk; there were Grecian couches, marble 
 tables, pier-glasses, and chandeliers. What chiefly attracted 
 jny eye, were documents of female taste that I saw ai'ound 
 me ; a piano, with an ample stock of Italian music : a book of 
 poetry lying on the sofa ; a vase of fresh flowers on a table, and 
 a portfoHo open with a skilful and half-flnished sketch of them. 
 In the window was a canary bird, in a gilt cage, and near by, 
 
26 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 the harp that had been in Julia's arms. Happy harp ! But 
 where was the being that reigned in this little empire of deli- 
 cacies? — that breathed poetry and song, and dwelt among birds 
 and flowers, and rose-colored curtains? 
 
 Suddenly I heard the hall door fly open, the quick pattering 
 of light steps, a wild, capricious strain of music, and the shrill 
 barking of a dog. A light, frolic nymph of fifteen came trip- 
 ping into the room, playing on a flageolet, with a little spaniel 
 romping after her. Her gipsy hat had fallen back upon her 
 shoulders ; a profusion of glossy brown hair was blown in rich 
 ringlets about her face, which beamed through them with the 
 brightness of smiles and dimples. 
 
 At sight of me she stopped short, in the most beautiful con- 
 fusion, stammered out a word or two about looking for her 
 father, glided out of the door, and I heard her bounding up 
 the staircase, like a frighted fawn, with the little dog barking 
 after her. 
 
 When Miss SomerviUe returned to the parlor, she was quite 
 a different being. She entered, stealing along by her mother's 
 side with noiseless step, and sweet timidity: her hair was 
 prettily adjusted, and a soft blush mantled on her damask 
 cheek. Mr. SomerviUe accompanied the ladies, and introduced 
 me regularly to them. There were many kind inquiries and 
 much sympathy expressed, on the subject of my nautical acci- 
 dent, and some remarks upon the wild scenery of the neighbor- 
 hood, with which the ladies seemed perfectly acquainted. 
 
 " You must know," said Mr. SomerviUe, " that we are great 
 navigators, and delight in exploring every nook and comer of 
 the river. My daughter, too, is a great hunter of the pictur- 
 esque, and transfers every rock and glen to her portfolio. By 
 the way, my dear, show Mr. Mountjoy that pretty scene you 
 have lately sketched." Julia complied, blushing, and drew 
 from her portfolio a colored sketch. I almost started at the 
 sight. It was my favorite brook. A sudden thought darted 
 across my mind. I glanced down my eye, and beheld the 
 divinest little foot in the world. Oh, bhssful con-viction ! The 
 struggle of my affections was at an end. The voice and the 
 footstep were no longer at variance. Julia Somerville was the 
 nymph of the fountain I 
 
 What conversation passed during breakfast I do not recol- 
 lect, and hardly was conscious of at the time, for my thoughts 
 
MOUNT JOY. 27 
 
 were in complete confusion. I -wished to gaze on Miss Somer- 
 villejbut did not dare. Once, indeed, I ventured a glance. She 
 ■was at that moment darting a silnilar one from under a covert 
 of ringlets. Our eyes seemed shocked by the rencontre, and 
 fell; here through the natural modesty of her sex, mine 
 through a bashfulness produced by the previous workings of 
 my imagination. That glance, however, went like a sun-beam, 
 to my heart. 
 
 A convenient mirror favored my diffidence, and gave me the 
 reflection of Miss SomerviUe's form. It is true it only present- 
 ed the back of her head, but she had the merit of an ancient 
 statue ; contemplate her from any point of view, she was beau- 
 tiful. And yet she was totally difEerent from everything I had 
 before conceived of beauty. She was not the serene, medita- 
 tive maid that I had pictured the nymph of the fountain ; nor 
 the tall, soft, languishing, blue-eyed, dignified being that I had 
 fancied the minstrel of the harp. There was nothing of dignity 
 about her : she was girlish in her appearance, and scarcely of 
 the middle size ; but then there was the tenderness of budding 
 youth ; the sweetness of the half -blown rose, when not a tint 
 or perfimie has been withered or exhaled; there were smiles 
 and dimples, and all the soft witcheries of ever-varying expres- 
 sion. I wondered that I could ever have admired any other 
 style of beauty. 
 
 After breakfast, Mr. Somerville departed to attend to the 
 concerns of his estate, and gave me in charge of the ladies. 
 Mrs. Somerville also was called away by household cares, and 
 I was left aione with Juha! Here, then, was the situation 
 which of all others I had most coveted. I was in the presence 
 of the lovely being that had so long been the desire of my 
 heart. We were alone; propitious opportunity for a lover 1 
 Did I seize upon it? Did I break out in one of my accustomed 
 rhapsodies? Nonsuch thing I Never was being more awk- 
 wardly embarrassed. 
 
 "What can be the cause of this?" thought I. "Surely, I 
 cannot stand in awe of this young girl. I am of course her 
 superior in intellect, and am never embarrassed in company 
 with my tutor, notwithstanding all his wisdom." 
 
 It was passing strange. I felt that if she were an old woman, 
 I should be quite at my ease ; if she were even an ugly woman, 
 I should make out very well: it was her beauty that over- 
 powered me. How httle do lovely women know what awful 
 beings they are, in the eyes of inexperienced youth! Young 
 
28 TEE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 men brouglit up in the fashionable circles of our cities will 
 smile at all this. Accustomed to mingle incessantly in female 
 society, and to have the romance of the heart deadened by a 
 thousand frivolous flirtations, women are nothing but women 
 in their eyes; but to a susceptible youth Hke myself, brought 
 up in the country, they are perfect divinities. 
 
 Miss SomervDle was at first a Uttle embarrassed herself; but, 
 some how or other, women have a natural adroitness in recov- 
 ering their self-possession; they are more alert in their minds, 
 and graceful in their manners. Beside, I was but an ordinary 
 personage in Miss SomerviLLe's eyes; she was not under the 
 influence of such a singular course of imaginings as had sur- 
 rounded her, in my eyes, with the illusions of romance. 
 Perhaps, too, she saw the confusion in the opposite camp and 
 gained courage from the discovery. At any rate she was the 
 first to take the field. 
 
 Her conversation, however, was only on common-place 
 topics, and in an easy, well-bred style. I endeavored to re- 
 spond in the same manner; but I was. strangely incompetent 
 to the task. My ideas were frozen up ; even words seemed to 
 faU me. I was excessively vexed at myself, for I wished to be 
 uncommonly elegant. I tried two or three times to turn a 
 pretty thought, or to utter a fine sentiment ; but it would come 
 forth so trite, so forced, so mawkish, that I was ashamed of it. 
 My very voice sounded discordantly, though I sought to modu- 
 late it into the softest tones. "The truth is," thought I to 
 myself, "I cannot bring my mind down to the small talk 
 necessary for young girls ; it is too masculine and robust for 
 the mincing measure of parlor gossip. I am a philosopher — 
 and that accounts for it." 
 
 The entrance of Mrs. SomerviUe at length gave me relief. I 
 at once breathed freely, and felt a vast deal of confidence come 
 over me. "This is strange," thought I, "that the appearance 
 of another woman should revive my courage ; that I should be 
 a better match for two women than one. Howe\rer, since it is 
 so, I will take advantage of the circumstance, and let this 
 young lady see that I am not so great a simpleton as she prob- 
 ably thinks me. " 
 
 I accordingly took up the book of poetry which lay upon the 
 sofa. It was Milton's "Paradise Lost." Nothing could have 
 been more fortunate ; it afEorded a fine scope for my favorite 
 vein of grandiloquence. I went largely into a discussion of its 
 merits, or rather an enthusiastic eulogy of them. My observer 
 
M0UNTJ07. 29 
 
 tions were addressed to Mrs. SotnerviUe, for I found I coulc^ 
 talk to her with more ease than to her daughter. She 
 appeared alive to the beauties of the poet, and disposed to meet 
 me in the discussion; but it was not my object to hear her 
 talk; it was to talk myself. I anticipated all she had to 
 say, overpowered her with the copiousness of my ideas, and 
 supported and illustrated them by long citations from the 
 author. 
 
 While thus holding forth, I cast a side glance to see how 
 Miss Somerville was affected. She had some embroidery 
 stretched on a frame before her, but had paused in her labor, 
 and was looking down as if lost in mute attention. I felt a 
 glow of self-satisfaction, but I recollected, at the same time, 
 with a kind of pique, the advantage she had enjoyed- over me 
 in our tete-a-t§te. I determined to push my triumph, and ac- 
 cordingly kept on with redoubled ardor, until I had fairly ex- 
 hausted my subject, or rather my thoughts. 
 
 I had scarce come to a full stop, when Miss Somerville 
 raised her eyes from the work on which they had been fixed, 
 and turning to her mother, observed: "I have been consider- 
 ing, mamma, whether to work these flowers plain, or in 
 colors." 
 
 Had an ice-bolt shot to my heart, it could not have chilled 
 me more effectually. "What a fool," thought I, "have I been 
 making myself — squandering away fine thoughts, a ad fine lan- 
 guage, upon a light mind, and an ignorant ear! This girl 
 knows nothing of poetry. She has no soul, I fear, for its 
 beauties. Can any one have real sensibility of heart, and not 
 be aUve to poetry? However, she is young; this part of her 
 education has been neglected: there is time enough to remedi 
 it. I will be her preceptor. I will kindle in her mind the 
 sacred flame, and lead her through the fairy land of song. 
 But after all, it is rather unfortunate that I should have fallen 
 in love with a woman who knows nothing of poetry." 
 
 I passed a day not altogether satisfactoiy. I was a little 
 .aisappointed that Miss Somerville did not show any poetical 
 feeling. "I am afraid, after all," said I to myself, "she is 
 light and girlish, and more fitted to pluck wild flowers, play on 
 the flageolet, and romp with little dogs than to converse with 
 amanof my turn." 
 
 I believe, however, to tell the truth, I was more out of 
 
30 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 iiumor with myself. I thought I had made the worst first 
 appearance that ever hero made, either in novel or fairy tale. 
 I was out of all patience, when I called to mind my awkward 
 attempts at ease and elegance in the tete-a-tete. And then my 
 intolerable long lecture about poetry to catch the applause of 
 a heedless auditor ! But there I was not to blame. I had cer- 
 tainly been eloquent: it was her fault that the eloquence was 
 wasted. To meditate upon the embroidery of a flower, when I 
 was expatiating on the beauties of Milton ! She might at least 
 have admired the poetry, if she did not rehsh the manner in, 
 which it was deUvered ; though that was not despicable, for I 
 had recited passages in my best style, which my mother and 
 sisters had always considered equal to a play. "Oh, it is 
 evident," thought I, "Miss SomervUle has very Uttle soul!" 
 
 Such were my fancies and cogitations during the day, the 
 greater part of which was spent in my chamber, for I was stiU: 
 languid. My evening was passed in the drawing-room, where 
 I overlooked Miss SomerviQe's portfolio of sketches. 
 
 They were executed with great taste, and showed a nice ob- 
 rTvation of the peculiarities of nature. They were aU her own, 
 and free from those cunning tints and touches of the drawing- 
 master, by which young ladies' drawings, hke their heads, are 
 dressed up for company. There was no garnish or vulgar trick 
 of colors, either ; all was executed with singular truth and sim- 
 pMcity. 
 
 " Aiid yet," thought I, "this little being, who has so pure an 
 uye to take in, as in a Umpid brook, all the graceful forms and 
 magic tints of nature, has no soul for poetry !" 
 
 Mr. Somerville, toward the latter part of the evening, observ- 
 ing my eye to wander occasionally to the harp, intorpreted 
 and met my wishes with his accustomed civUity. 
 
 " Juha, my dear," said he, "Mr. Mount joy would hke to hear 
 a little music from your harp ; let us hear, too, the sound of 
 your voice." 
 
 Julia immediately complied, without any of that hesitation 
 and difficulty, by which young ladies are apt to make company 
 pay dear for bad music. She sang a sprightly strain, in a bril- 
 liant style, that came triQing playfully over the ear ; and the 
 bright eye and dimpling smile showed that her httle heart 
 danced with the song. Her pet canary bird, who hung close 
 by, was awakened by the music, and burst forth into an emu- 
 lating strain. Julia smiled with a pretty air of defiance, and 
 played louder. 
 
MOUNTJOT. 31 
 
 After some time, the music changed, and ran into a plaintive 
 strain, in a minor key. Then it was, that all the former 
 witchery of her voice came over me ; then it was that she 
 seemed to sing from the heart and to the heart. Her fingers 
 moved about the chords as if they scarcely touched them. 
 Her whole manner and appearance changed ; her eyes beamed 
 with the softest expression; her countenance, her frame, all 
 seemed subdued into tenderness. She rose from the harp, 
 leaving it still vibrating with sweet sounds, and moved toward 
 her father to bid him good night. 
 
 His eyes had been fixed on her intently, during her perfor- 
 mance. As she came before him he parted her shining ringlets 
 with both his hands, and looked down with the fondness of a 
 father on her innocent face. The music seemed still lingering 
 in its lineaments, and the action of her father brought a moist 
 gleam in her eye. He kissed her fair forehead, after the 
 French mode of parental caressing: " Good night, and God 
 bless you," said he, "my good Kttle girl!" 
 
 Julia tripped away, with a tear in her eye, a dimple in her 
 cheek, and a light heart in her bosom. I thought it the pret- 
 tiest picture of paternal and filial affection I had ever seen. 
 
 When I retired to bed, anew train of thoughts crowded into 
 my brain. " After all," said I to myself, " it is clear this girl 
 has a soul, though she was not moved by my eloquence. She 
 has all the outward signs and evidences of poetic feeling. She 
 paints well, and has an eye for nature. She is a fine musician, 
 and enters into the very soid of song. What a pity that she 
 knows nothing of poetry 1 But we will see what is to be done. 
 I am irretrievably in love with her; what then am I to do? 
 Come down to the level of her mind, or endeavor to raise her 
 to some kind of intellectual equality with myself? That is the 
 most generous course. She wHl look up to me as a benefactor. 
 I shall become associated in her mind with the lofty thoughts 
 and harmonious graces of poetry. She is apparently docile: 
 beside, the difference of our ages will give me an ascendancy 
 over her. She cannot be above sixteen years of age, and I am 
 fuU turned to twenty." So, having buHt this most delectable 
 of air castles, I fell asleep. 
 
 The next morning I was quite a different being. I no longer 
 felt fearful of stealing a glance at Jidia; on the contrary, I 
 contemplated her steadily, with the benignant eye of a bencfac- 
 
32 THE CUAYON PAPERS. 
 
 tor. Shortly after breakfast I foimcl myseK alone with her, as 
 I had on the preceding morning ; but I felt nothing of the awk- 
 wardness of our previous tete-a-tete. I was elevated by the 
 consciousness of my intellectual superiority, and should almost 
 have felt a sentiment of pity for the ignorance of the lovely 
 little being, if I had not felt also the assurance that I should be 
 able to dispel it. " But it is time, " thought I, "to open school. " 
 
 Julia was occupied in arranging some music on her piano. 
 I looked over two or three songs; they were Moore's Irish 
 melodies. 
 
 "These are pretty things!" said I, flirting the leaves over 
 lightly, and giving a slight shrug, by way of qualifying the 
 opinion. 
 
 "Oh, I love them of all things," said Julia, "they're so 
 touching!" 
 
 " Then you hke them for the poetry," said I, with an encour- 
 aging smUe. 
 
 " Oh yes ; she thought them charmingly written." 
 
 Now was my time. " Poetry," said I, assiuming a didactic 
 attitude and air, "poetry is one of the most pleasing studies 
 that can occupy a youthful mind. It renders us susceptible of 
 the gentle impulses of humanity, and cherishes a delicate per- 
 ception of all that is virtuous and elevated in morals, and 
 graceful and beautiful in physics. It " 
 
 I was going on in a style that would have graced a professor 
 of rhetoric, when I saw a hght snule playing about Miss 
 SomerviUe's mouth, and that she began to turn over the leaves 
 of a music-book. I recollected her inattention to my discourse 
 of the preceding morning. "There is no fixing her Hght 
 mind," thought I, " by. abstract theory ; we wiU proceed prac- 
 tically." As it happened, the identical volume of Milton's 
 Paradise Lost was lying at hand. 
 
 "Let me recommend to you, my yoimg friend," said I, in 
 one of those tones of persuasive admonition, which I had so 
 often loved in Glencoe, "let me recommend to you this ad- 
 mirable poem; you will find in it sources of intellectual enjoy- 
 ment far superior to those songs which have dehghted you." 
 Julia looked at the book, and then at me, with a whimsically 
 dubious air. "Milton's Paradise Lost?" said she; "oh, I 
 know the greater part of that by heart." 
 
 I had not expected to find my pupil so far advanced ; how- 
 ever, the Paradise Lost is a kind of school-book, and its finest 
 passages are given to young ladies as tasks.' 
 
MOUNTJOY. 33 
 
 "I find," said I to myself, "I must not treat her as so com- 
 plete a novice ; her inattention yesterday could not have pro- 
 ceeded from absolute ignorance, but merely from a want of 
 poetic feeUng. I'U try her again." 
 
 I now determined to dazzle her with my own erudition, and 
 launched into a harangue that would have done honor to an 
 institute. Pope, Spenser, Chaucer, and the old dramatic wri- 
 ters were all dipped into, with the excursive flight of a 
 swallow. I did not confine myself to English poets, but gave 
 a glance at the French and Italian schools; I passed over 
 Ariosto in full wing, but paused on Tasso's Jerusalem De- 
 livered. I dwelt on the character of Clorinda: "There's a 
 character," said I, "that you will find well worthy a woman's 
 study. It shows to what exalted heights of heroism the sex 
 can rise, how gloriously they may share even in the stern con- 
 cerns of men." 
 
 "For my part," said Julia, gently taking advantage of a 
 pause, " for my part, I prefer the character of Sophronia." 
 
 I was thunderstruck. She then had read Tasso ! This girl 
 that I had been treating as an ignoramus in poetry ! She pro- 
 ceeded with a slight glow of the cheek, summoned up perhaps 
 by a casual glow of feeling: 
 
 "I do not admire those maeculiae heroines," said she, " who 
 aim at the bold qualities of the opposite sex. Now Soph- 
 ronia only exhibits the real qualities of a woman, wrought 
 up to their highest excitement. She is modest, gentle, and 
 retiring, as it becomes a woman to be; but she has all the 
 strength of affection proper to a womaji. She cannot fight for 
 her people as Clorinda does, but she can offer herself up, and 
 die to serve them. You may admire Clorinda, but you surely 
 would be more apt to love Sophronia; at least," added she, 
 suddenly appearing to recollect herself, and blushing at having 
 launched into such a discussion, "at least that is what papa 
 observed when we read the poem together." 
 
 " Indeed, "said I, dryly, for I felt disconcerted and nettled at 
 being imexpeotedly lectured by my pupil; "indeed, I do not 
 exactly recollect the passage." 
 
 "Oh," said JuUa, "I can repeat it to you;" and she im- 
 mediately gave it in Italian. 
 
 Heavens and earth !— here was a situation ! I knew no more 
 of Italian than I did of the language of Psalmanazar. What a 
 dilemma for a would-be- wise man to be placed in! I saw 
 JuUa waited for my opinion. 
 
34 TEE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 "In fact," said I, hesitating, "I— I do not exactly under- 
 stand Italian." 
 
 " Oh," said Julia, with the utmost naivete, "I have no doubt 
 it is very beautiful in the translation. " 
 
 I was glad to break up school, and get back to my chamber, 
 fuU of the mortification which a wise man in love experiences 
 on finding his mistress wiser than himself. "Translation! 
 translation !" muttered I to myself, as I jerked the door shut 
 behind me: " I am surprised my father has never had me in- 
 structed in the m.odern languages. They are all-important. 
 What is the use of Latin and Greek? No one speaks them; 
 but here, the moment I make my appearance in the world, a 
 little girl siaps Italian in my face. However, thank heaven, a 
 language is easily learned. The moment I return home, I'U 
 set about studying Italian ; and to prevent future surprise, I 
 will study Spanish and German at the same time ; and if any 
 young lady attempts to quote Italian upon me again, I'U bury 
 her under a heap of High Dutch poetry !" 
 
 I felt now like some mighty chieftain, who has carried the 
 war into a weak country, with fuU confidence of success, and 
 been repulsed and obliged to draw off his forces from before 
 some inconsiderable fortress. 
 
 "However," thought I, "I have as yet brought only my 
 light artillery into action ; we shaU see what is to be done with 
 my heavy ordnance. Julia is evidently weU versed in poetry ; 
 but it is natural she should be so ; it is aUied to painting and 
 music, and is congenial to the light graces of the female char- 
 acter. We will try her on graver themes." 
 
 I felt aU my pride awakened; it even for a time swelled 
 higher than my love. I was determined completely to estab- 
 lish my mental superiority, and subdue the intellect of this 
 little being; it would then be time to sway the sceptre of 
 gentle empire, and win the affections of her heart. 
 
 Accordingly, at dinner I again took the field, enpotence. I 
 now addressed myself to Mr. SomervUle, for I was about to 
 enter upon topics in which a young girl like her could not be 
 well versed. I led, or rather forced, the conversation into a 
 vein of historical erudition, discussing several of the most 
 prominent facts of ancient history, and accompanying them 
 with sound, indisputable apothegms. 
 
 Mr. Som.erville listened to me with the air of a man re- 
 
MOUNTJOT. 35 
 
 ceiving information. I was encouraged, and went on glori- 
 ously from theme to theme of school declamation. I sat with 
 Marius on the ruins of Carthage; I defended the bridge with 
 Horatius Codes; thrust my hand iuto the flame with Martius 
 Scaevola, and plunged with Curtius into the yawning gulf; I 
 fought side by side with Leonidas, at the straits of Thermo- 
 pylae; and was going full drive into the battle of Plateea, when 
 my memory, which is the worst in the world, failed mo, just 
 as I wanted the name of the Lacedemonian commander. 
 
 "Julia, my dear," said Mr. Somerville, "perhaps you may 
 recoUect the name of which Mr. Mountjoy is in quest?" 
 
 Julia colored slightly. "I believe," said she, ia a low voice, 
 "I believe it was Pausanias." 
 
 This unexpected sally, instead of reinforcing me, threw my 
 whole scheme of battle into confusion, and the Athenians re- 
 mained unmolested in the field. 
 
 I am half iacliaed, since, to think Mr. Somerville meant this 
 as a sly hit at my schoolboy pedantry; but he was too well 
 bred not to seek to relieve me from my mortification. " Oh !" 
 said he, "JuUa is our family book of reference for names, 
 dates, and distances, and has an excellent memory for history 
 and geography." 
 
 I now became desperate ; as a last resource I turned to meta- 
 physics. " If she is a philosopher in petticoats," thought I, 
 "it is aU over with me." Here, nowever, I had the field to 
 myself. I gave chapter and verse of my tutor's lectures, 
 heightened by all his poetical illustrations ; I even went further 
 than he had ever ventured, and plunged int^> such depths of 
 metaphysics, that I was in danger of sticking in the mire at 
 the bottom. Fortunately, I had auditors who apparently 
 could not detect my flounderings. Neither Mr. Somerville nor 
 his daughter offered the least interruption. 
 
 When the ladies had retired, Mr. Somerville sat some time 
 with me ; and as I was no longer anxious to astonish, I per- 
 mitted myself to listen, and found that he was really agreeable. 
 He was quite communicative, and from his conversation I wafe 
 enabled to form a juster idea of his daughter's character, and 
 the mode ia which she had been brought up. Mr. Somerville 
 had mingled much with the world, and with what is termed 
 fashionable society. He had experienced its cold elegancies 
 and gay insincerities; its dissipation of the spirits and squan- 
 derings of the heart. Like many men of the world, though he 
 had wandered too far from nature ever to return to it, yet he 
 
36 Tim CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 haxi the good taste and good feeling to look back fondly to its 
 simple delights, and to determine that Mg child, if possible, 
 should never leave them. He had superintended her education 
 with scrupulous care, storing her mind with the graces of 
 polite literature, and with such knowledge as would enable it 
 to furnish its own amusement and occupation, and giving her 
 all the accomplishments chat sweeten and enliven the circle of 
 domestic life. He had been particularly sedulous to exclude 
 all fashionable afEectaiions; all false sentiment, false sensi- 
 bility, and false romance. "Whatever advantages she may 
 possess," said he, "she is quite unconscious of them. She is 
 a capricious little being, in everything but her affections; she 
 is, however, free from art; simple, ingenuous, amiable, and, I 
 thank God! happy." 
 
 Such was the eulogy of a fond father, delivered with a ten- 
 derness that touched me. I could not help making a casual 
 inquiry, whether, among the graces of polite literature, he had 
 included a shght tincture of metaphysics. He smiled, and told 
 me he had not. 
 
 On the whole, when, as usual, that night, I summed up the 
 day's observations on my pillow, .1 was not altogether dissatis- 
 fied. "Miss SomerviUe," said I, "loves poetry, and I hke her 
 the better for it. She has the advantage of me in Italian; 
 agreed ; what is it to know a variety of languages, but merely 
 to have a variety of sounds to express the-same idea? Original 
 thought is the ore of the mind ; language is but the accidental 
 stan>p and coinage by which it is put into circulation. If I 
 can furnish an original idea, what care I how many languages 
 she can translate it into? She may be able also to quote 
 names, and dates, and latitudes better than I ; but that is a 
 mere efiEort of the memory. I admit she is more accurate in 
 history and geography than I ; but then she knows nothing 
 of metaphysics." 
 
 I had now sufficiently recovered to return home ; yet I could 
 not think of leaving Mr. SomerviUe' s without having a little 
 further conversation with him on the subject of his daughter's 
 education. 
 
 " This Mr. SomerviUe," thought I, " is a very accomplished, 
 elegant man ; he has seen a good deal of the world, and, upon 
 the whole, has profited by what he has seen. He is not with- 
 out information, and, as far as he thinks, appears to think 
 correctly; but after all, he is rather superficial, and does 
 not think profoundly. He seems to take no delight in those 
 
MOUNT J or. 37 
 
 metaphysical abstractions that are the proper aliment of mas- 
 cuhne minds." I caUed to mind various occasions in which I 
 had indulged largely in metaphysical discussions, but could 
 recollect no instance where I had been able to draw him out. 
 He had listened, itis true, with attention, and smiled as if in 
 acquiescence, but had always appeared to avoid reply. Be- 
 side, I had made several sad blunders in the glow of eloquent 
 declamation ; but he had never iaterrupted me, to notice and 
 correct them, as he would have done had he been versed in 
 the themo. 
 
 "Now, it is really a great pity," resumed I, "that he should 
 have the entire management of Miss Som.erville's education. 
 What a vast advantage it woiild be, if she could be put for a 
 httle time under the superintendence of Glencoe. He would 
 throw some deeper shades of thought into her mind, which at 
 present is all sunshine ; not but that Mr. SomerviUe has done 
 very well, as far as he has gone ; but then he has merely pre- 
 pared the soil for the strong plants of useful knowledge. She 
 is well versed in the leading facts of history, and the general 
 course of belles-lettres," said I; "a httle more philosophy 
 would do wonders." 
 
 1 accordingly took occasion to ask Mr. SomerviUe for a Tew 
 moments' conversation in his study, the morning I was to 
 depart. When we were alone I opened the matter ftilly to 
 him. I commenced with the warmest eulogium of Glencoe's 
 powers of mind, and vast acquirements, and ascribed to him 
 all my proficiency in the higher branches of knowledge. I 
 begged, therefore, to recommend him as a friend calculated to 
 direct the studies of Mi^s SomerVille; to lead her mind, by 
 dGgrees, to the contemplation of abstract principles, and to 
 produce habits of philosophical analysis; "which," added I, 
 gently smUing, "are not often cultivated by young ladies." I 
 ventured to hint, in addition, that he would find Mr. Glencoe 
 a mos* valuable and interesting acquaintance for himself ; one 
 who would stimulate and evolve the powers of his mind ; and 
 who might open to him tracts of inquiry and speculation, to 
 which perhaps Le had hitherto been a stranger. 
 
 Mr. SomerviUe listened with grave attention. When I had 
 finished, he thanked me in the politest manner for the interest 
 I took in the welfare of his daughter and himself. He ob- 
 served that, as regarded himself, he was afraid he was too old 
 to benefit by the instruction of Mr. Glencoe, and that as to liis 
 daughter, he was afraid her mind was but little fitted for the 
 
38 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 study of metaphysics. "I do not wish," continued he, "to 
 strain her intellects with subjects they cannot grasp, but to 
 make her familiarly acquainted with those that are within the 
 Hmits of her capacity. I do not pretend to prescribe the 
 boundaries of female genius, and am far from indulging the 
 ■vulgar opinion, that women are imfitted by nature for the 
 highest intellectual purstiits. I speak only with reference to 
 my daughter's tastes and talents. She will never make a 
 learned woman ; nor, in truth, do I desire it ; for such is the 
 jealousy of our sex, as to mental as well as physical ascend- 
 ancy, that a learned woman is not always the happiest. I do 
 not wish my daughter to excite envy, or to battle with the 
 prejudices of the world ; but to glide peaceably through lite, 
 on the good will and kind opinions of her friends. She has 
 ample employment for her little head, in the course I have 
 marked out for her ; and is busy at present with some branches 
 of natural history, calculated to awaken her perceptions to the 
 beauties and wonders of nature, and to the inexhaustible vol- 
 ume of wisdom constantly spread open before her eyes. I 
 consider that woman most likely to make an agreeable com- 
 panion, who can draw topics of pleasing remark from, every 
 natural object ; and most likely to be cheerful and contented, 
 who is continually sensible of the order, the harmony, and the 
 invariable beneficence, that reign throughout the beautiful 
 world we iahabit." 
 
 "But," added he, smiUng, "I am betraying myself into a 
 lecture, instead of merely giving a reply to your kind offer. 
 Permit me to take the hberty, in return, of inquiring a little 
 about your own pursuits. You speak of having finished your 
 education; but of course you have a line of private study and 
 mental occupation marked out; for you must know the impor- 
 tance, both in point of interest and happiness, of keeping the 
 mind employed. May I ask what system you observe m your 
 intellectual exercises?" 
 
 " Oh, as to system," I observed, " I could never briag myscM 
 into anything of the kind. I thought it best to let my geniiis 
 take its own course, as it always acted the most vigorously 
 when stimulated by inclination." 
 
 Mr. SomerviUe shook his head. "This same genius," said 
 he, " is a wild quality, that runs away with our most promis- 
 ing young men. It has become so much the fashion, too, to 
 give it the reins, that it is now thought an animal of too noble 
 and generous a nature to be brought to harness. But it is all 
 
MOV NT JOY. 89 
 
 6, mistake. Nature never designed these high eudswments to 
 run riot through society, and threw the whole system into 
 confusion. No, my dear sir, genius, unless it acts upon sys- 
 tem, is very apt to be a useless quality to society ; sometimes 
 an injurious, and certainly a very vmcomfortable one, to its 
 possessor. I have had many opportunities of see'Lng the pro- 
 gress through Ufe of young men who were accounted geniuses, 
 and have found it too often end in early exhaustion and bitter 
 disappointment; and have as often noticed that these effects 
 might be traced to a total want of system. There were no 
 habits of business, of steady purpose, and regular application, 
 Bupcrinduced upon the mind; everything was left to chance 
 and impulse, and native luxuriance, and everything of course 
 ran to waste and wild entanglement. Excuse me if I am 
 tedious on this point, for I feel soMcitous to impress it upon 
 you, being an error extremely prevalent in our coimtry and 
 one into which too many of our youth have fallen. I am 
 happy, however, to observe the zeal which still appears to 
 actua.te you for the acquisition of knowledge, and augur every 
 good from the elevated bent of your ambition. May I ask 
 what has been your course of study lor the last six months?" 
 
 Never was question more unluckily timed. For the last six 
 months I had been absolutely biuied in novels and romances. 
 
 Mr. SomervUle perceived that the question was embsirrass- 
 ing, and with his invariable good breeding, immediately re- 
 sumed the conversation, without waiting for a reply. He took 
 care, however, to turn it in such a way as to draw from me an 
 account of the whole manner in which I Tiad been educated, 
 and the various currents of reading into which my mind had 
 run. He then went on to discuss, briefly but impressively, 
 the difEerent branches of knowledge most important to a 
 yoimg man in my situation; and to my surprise I toimd him 
 a complete master of those studies on which I had supposed 
 him ignorant, and on which I had been descanting so confi- 
 dently. 
 
 He complimented me, however, very graciously, upon the 
 progress I had made, but advised me for the present to turn 
 my attention to the physical rather than the moral sciences. 
 "These studies," said he, "store a man's mind with valuable 
 facts, and at the same time repress self-confidence, by letting 
 him know how boundless are the realms of knowledge, and 
 how little we can possibly laiow. Whereas metaphysical stu- 
 rtiep, thou,":h of an inj^enious ordor of intellectual employment. 
 
40 THE CRATON PAPERS. 
 
 are apt to bewilder some minds withvagiie speculations. They 
 never know how far they have advanced, or what may be the 
 correctness of their favorite theory. They render many of our 
 yoim.g men verbose and declamatory, and prone to mistake 
 the aberrations of their fancy for the inspirations of divine 
 philosophy." 
 
 I could not but interrupt him, to assent to the truth of these 
 remarks, and to say that it had been my lot, in the course of 
 my Mmited experience, to encounter young men of the kind, 
 who had overwhelmed me by their verbosity. 
 
 Mr. Somerville smiled. "I trust," said he, kindly, "that 
 you will guard against these errors. Avoid the eagerness with 
 which a young man is apt to hurry into conversation, and to 
 utter the crude and ill-digested notions which he has picked up 
 in his recent studies. Be assured that extensive and accurate 
 knowledge is the slow acquisition of a studious lifetime ; that a 
 yoimg man, however pregnant his wit, and prompt his talent, 
 can have mastered but the rudiments of learning, and, in a 
 manner, attained the implements of study. Whatever may 
 have been your past assiduity, you must be sensible that as 
 yet you have but reached the threshold of true knowledge ; but 
 a,t the same time, you have the advantage that you are still 
 very young, and have ample time to learn. " 
 
 Here our conference ended. I walked out of the study, a very 
 different being from what I was on entering it. I had gone in 
 with the £iir of a professor about to deliver a lecture; I came 
 out Kke a student who had failed in his examination, and been 
 degraded in his class. 
 
 "Very young," and "on the threshold of knowledge"! This 
 was extremely flattering, to one who had considered himself 
 an accomplished scholar, and profound philosopher. 
 
 "It is singiilar," thought I; "there seems to have been a 
 pppll upon my faculties, ever since I have been in this house. 
 I certainly have not been able to do myself justice. Whenever 
 I have undertaken to advise, I have had the tables turned upon 
 me. It must be that I am strange and diffident among people 
 I am not accustomed to. I wish they could hear mo talk at 
 home !" 
 
 "After all," added I, on further reflection, "after all, there 
 is a great deal of force in what Mr. Somerville has said. Some- 
 how or other, these men of the world do now and then hit 
 upon remarks that would do credit to a philosopher. Some of 
 his general observations came so home, that I almost thought 
 
THE ORE AT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 41 
 
 they were meant for myself. His advice about adopting a 
 system of study is very judicious. I will immediately put it 
 in practice. My mind shall operate henceforward with the 
 regularity of clock-work." 
 
 How far I succeeded in adopting this plan, how I fared in 
 the further p' rsuit of knowledge, and how I succeeded in my 
 suit to Juha SomervQle, may afford matter for a further com- 
 munication to the pubUc, if this simple record of my early life 
 is fortunate enough to excite any curiosity. 
 
 THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 
 "a time of unexampled prosperity." 
 
 In the course of a voyage from England, I once fell in with 
 a convoy of merchant sliips hound for the West Indies. The 
 weather was uncommonly bland; and the ships vied with each 
 other in spreading sail to catch a Mght, favoring breeze, until 
 their hulls were almost hidden beneath a cloud of canvps. 
 The breeze went down with the sun, and his last yellow rays 
 shone upon a thousand sails, idly flapping against the masts. 
 
 I exulted in the beauty of the scene, and augured a pros- 
 perous voyage ; but the veteran master of the ship shook his 
 head, and pronounced this halcyon calm a " weather-breeder." 
 And so it proved. A storm burst forth in the night; the sea 
 roared and raged; and when the day broke, I beheld the late 
 gallant convoy scattered in every direction ; some dismasted, 
 others scudding under bare poles, and many firing signals of 
 distress. 
 
 I have since been occasionally reminded of this scene, by 
 those calm, sunny seasons in the commercial world, which are 
 Iracwn by the name of "times of unexampled prosperity." 
 They ase the sure weather-breeders of trafBc. Every pow and 
 then the world is visited by one of these delusive seasons, when 
 " the credit system," as it is called, expands to full luxuriance, 
 everybody trusts everybody: a bad debt is a thing imheard of; 
 the broad way to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and 
 open; and men are tempted to dash forward boldly, from the 
 facility of borrowing. 
 
 Promissory notes, interchanged between scheming indi- 
 
43 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 viduals, are liberally discounted at the banks, which become 
 so many mints to coin words into cash ; and as the supply of 
 words is inexhaustible, it may readily be supposed what a vast 
 amount of promissory capital is soon in circulation. Every one 
 now talks in thousands ; nothing is heard but gigantic opera- 
 tions in trade ; great purchases and sales of real property, and 
 immense sums made at every transfer. All, to bo sure, as yet 
 exists in promise ; but the believer in promises calculates the 
 aggregate as sohd capital, and falls back in amazement at the 
 amount of public wealth, the "unexampled state of public 
 prosperity." 
 
 Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing 
 men. They relate their dreams and projects to the ignorant 
 and credulous, dazzle them with golden visions, and set them 
 madding after shadows. The example of one stimulates 
 another; speculation rises on speculation; bubble rises on 
 bubble; every one helps with his breath to swell the windy 
 superstructure, and ad rn ires and wonders at the magnitude of 
 the inflation he has contributed to produce. 
 
 Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon 
 aU its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, 
 and the exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the 
 merchant into a kind of knight-errant, or rather a commercial 
 Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug percentage become 
 despicable in his eyes; no "operation" is thought worthy oi 
 attention, that does not double or treble the investment. No 
 business is worth following, that does not promise an imme- 
 diate fortune. As he sits musing over his ledger, with pen 
 behind his ear, he is like La Mancha's hero in his study, 
 dreaming over his books of chivalry. His dusty counting- 
 house fades before his eyes, or changec into a Spanish mine; 
 he gropes after diamonds, or dives after pearls. The subter- 
 ranean garden of Aladdin is nothing to the realms of wealth 
 that break upon his imagination. 
 
 Could this delusion always last, the life of a merchant would 
 indeed be a golden dream; but it is as short as it is brilliant. 
 Let but a doubt enter, and the "season of unexampled pros- 
 perity" is at end. The coinage of words is suddenly curtailed ; 
 the promissory capital begins to vanish into smoke; a panic 
 succeeds, and the whole superstructure, built upon credit, 
 and reared by speculation, crumbles to the ground, lea.ving 
 scarce a wreck behind: 
 
 *' It is such stuff as dreams are made of." 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 43 
 
 When a man of business, therefore, hears on every side 
 rumors of fortunes suddenly acquired; when he finds banks 
 liberal, and brokers busy ; when he sees adventurers flush of 
 paper capital, and full of scheme and enterprise ; when he per- 
 ceives a greater disposition to buy than to sell ; when trade 
 overflows its accustomed channels and deluges the country; 
 when he hears of new regions of commercial adventure; of 
 distant marts and distant mines, swallowing merchandise and 
 disgorging gold; when he finds joint stock companies of all 
 kinds forming; railroads, canals, and locomotive engines, 
 springing up on every side ; when idlers suddenly become men 
 of business, and dash into the game of commerce as they would 
 into the hazards of the faro table ; when ho beholds the streets 
 ghttering with new equipages, palaces conjured up by the 
 magic of speculation ; tradesmen flushed with sudden success, 
 and vying with each other in ostentatious expense ; in a word, 
 when he hears the whole cpmmunity joining in the theme of 
 "unexampled prosperity," let him look upon the whole as a 
 "weather-breeder," and prepare for the impending storm. 
 
 The foregoing remarks are intended merely as a prelude to 
 a narrative I am about to lay before the pubhc, of one of the 
 most memorable instances of the infatuation of gain, to be 
 found in the whole history of commerce. I allude to the 
 famous Mississippi bubble. It is a matter that has passed into 
 a proverb, and become a phrase in every one's mouth, yet of 
 which not one merchant in ten has probably a distinct idea. 
 I have therefore thought that an authentic account of it would 
 be interesting and salutary, at the present moment, when we 
 are suffering under the effects of a severe access of the credit 
 system, and just recovering from one of its ruinous delusions. 
 
 Before entering into the story of this famous chimera, it is 
 proper to give a few particulars concerning the individual who 
 engendered it. John Law was born in Edinburgh in 1671. 
 His father, WiUiam Law, was a rich goldsmith, and left his 
 son an estate of considerable value, called Latiriston, situated 
 about four miles from Edinburgh. Goldsmiths, in those days, 
 acted occasionally as bankers, and his father's operations, 
 imdcr this character, may have originally turned the thoughts 
 of the youth to the science of calculation, in which he became 
 an adept ; so that at an early age he excelled in playing at all 
 games o^ combination. 
 
44 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 In 1694 he appeared in London, where a handsome person, 
 and an easy and insinuating address, gained him currency in 
 the first circles, and the nick-name of '■ JBeau Law." The same 
 personal advantages gave him success in the world of gal- 
 lantry, imtil he became involved in a quarrel with Beau 
 WUson, his rival in fashion, whom he kdled in a duel, and 
 then fled to France, to avoid prosecution. 
 
 He returned to Edinburgh in 1700, and remained there seve- 
 ral years ; during which time he first broached his great credit 
 system, ofEering to supply the deficiency of coin by the estab- 
 hshment of a bank, which, according to his views, might emit 
 a paper currency, equivalent to the whole landed estate of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 His scheme excited great astonishment in Edinburgh ; but, 
 though the government was not suificiently advanced in finan- 
 cial knowledge to detect the fallacies upon which it was 
 foxinded, Scottish caution and suspicion served in the place 
 of wisdom, and the project was rejected. Law met with no 
 better success with the English Parlit^ment ; and the fatal affair 
 of the death of WUson still hangin*^ over him, for which he 
 had never been able to procure a pardon, he again went to 
 France. 
 
 The financial affairs of France were at this time in a deplor- 
 able condition. The wars, the pomp and profusion, of Louis 
 XIV., and his religious persecutions of whole classes of the 
 most industrious of his subjects, had exhausted his treasury, 
 and overwhelmed the nation with debt. The old monarch 
 clung to his selfish magnificence, and could not be induced to 
 diminish his enormous expenditure ; and his minister of finance 
 was driven to his wits' end to devise all kinds of disastrous 
 expedients to keep up the royal state, and to extricate the 
 nation from its embarrassments. 
 
 In this state of things, Law ventured to bring forward his 
 financial project. It was founded on the plan of the Bank 
 of England, which had already been in successful operation 
 several years. He met with iinmediate patronage, and a con- 
 genial spirit, in the Duke of Orleans, who had married a 
 natural daughter of the king. The duke had been astonished 
 at the facility with which England had supported the burden 
 of a public debt, created by the wars of Anne and William, 
 and which exceeded in amount that under which France was 
 groaning. The whole matter was soon explained by Law to 
 his satisfaction. The latter maintained that England had 
 
TUB GRKAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 45 
 
 stopped at the mere threshold of an art capable of creating 
 unlimited sources of national wealth. The duke wac dazzled 
 with his splendid views and specious reasonings, and thought 
 he clearly comprehended his system. Demarets, the Comp- 
 troller General of Finance, was not so easily deceived. He 
 pronoimced the plan of Law more pernicious than any of the 
 disastrcus expedients that the government had yet been driven 
 to. The old king also, Louis XIV., detested all innovations, 
 especially those which came from a rival nation; the project 
 of a bank, therefore, was utterly rejected. 
 
 Law remained for a while in Paris, leading a gay and affluent 
 existence, owing to his handsome person, easy manners, flexi- 
 ble temper, and a faro-bank which he had set up. His agree- 
 able career was interrupted by a message from D'Argenson, 
 Lieutenant General of PoHce, ordering him to quit Paris, 
 alleging that ho was ''rather too skilful at the game which he 
 had introduced.'''' 
 
 For several succeeding years he shifted his residence from 
 state to state of Italy and Germany ; ofEering his scheme of 
 finance to every court that he visited, but without success. 
 The Duke of Safoy, Victor Amadeus, afterward King of Sar- 
 dinia, was much struck with his project ; but after considering 
 it for a time, rephed, "lam not sufficiently powerful to ruin 
 myself^ 
 
 The shifting, adventurous hfe of Law, and the equivocal 
 means by which he appeared to live, playing high, and always 
 with great success, threw a cloud of suspicion over him, wher- 
 ever he went, and caused him to be expelled by the magistracy 
 from the semi-commercial, semi-aristocratical cities of Venice 
 and Genoa. 
 
 The evente of 1715 brought Law back again to Paris. Louis 
 XrV. was dead. Louis XV. was a mere child, and during his 
 minority the Duke of Orleans held the reigns of government as 
 Eegent. Law had at length found his man. 
 
 The Duke of Orleans has been differently represented by 
 different contemporaries. He appears to have had excellent 
 natural qualities, pervented by a bad education. He was of 
 the middle size, easy and graceful, with an agreeable counte- 
 nance, and open, affable demeanor. His mind was quick and 
 sagacious, rather than profound; and his quickness of intel- 
 lect, and excellence of memory, supplied the lack of studious 
 application. His wit was prompt and pungent ; he expressed 
 himself with vivacity and precision; his imagination was vivid, 
 
46 TEE CBA TON PAPERS. 
 
 bis temperament sanguine and joyous; his courage daring. 
 His mother, the Duchess of Orleans, expressed his character in 
 a jeu d'esprit. "The faiiies," said she, "were invited to be 
 present at his birth, and each one conferred a talent on my 
 son ; he possesses them all. Unfortunately, we had forgotten 
 to invite an old fairy, who, arriving after all the others, ex- 
 claimed, ' He shall have all the talents, excepting that to make 
 a good use of them.' " 
 
 Under proper tuition, the Duke might have risen to real 
 greatness ; but in his early years, he was put under the tute- 
 lage of the Abbe Dubois, one of the subtlest and basest spirits 
 that ever intrigued its way into eminent place and power. 
 The Abbe was of low origin, and despicable exterior, totally 
 destitute of morals, and perfidious in. the extreme ; but with a 
 supple, insiQuating address, and an accommodating spirit, 
 tolerant of aU kinds of profligacy in others. Conscious of his 
 own inherent baseness, he sought to secure an influence over 
 his pupU, by corrupting his principles and fostering his vices ; 
 he debased him, to keep himself from being despised. Unfor- 
 tunately he succeeded. To the early precepts of this infamous 
 pander have been attributed those excesses that disgraced the 
 manhood of the Eegent, and gave a hcentious character to his 
 whole coiirse of government. His love of pleasure, quickened 
 and indulged by those who should have restrained it, led hiin 
 into all kinds of sensual indulgence. He had been taught to 
 think lightly of the most serious duties and sacred ties ; to turn 
 virtue into a jest, and consider religion mere hypocrisy. He 
 was a gay misanthrope, that had a sovereign but sportive con- 
 tempt for mankind; beheved that his most devoted servant 
 would be his enemy, if interest prompted ; and maintained that 
 an honest man was he who had the art to conceal that he was 
 the contrary. 
 
 He surrounded himself with a set of dissolute men like him- 
 self ; who, let loose from the restraint under which they had 
 been held, during the latter hypocritical days of Louis XIV. , 
 now gave way to every kind of debauchery. With these men 
 the Eegent used to shut himself up, after the hours of business, 
 and excluding aU graver persons and graver concerns, celebrate 
 the most drunken and disgusting orgies; where obscenity and 
 blasphemy formed the seasoning of conversation. For the 
 profligate companions of these revels, he invented the appella- 
 tion of his roiids, the literal meaning of which is men broken 
 on the wheel; intended, no doubt, to express their broken-down 
 
THE OREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 47 
 
 Cliaracters and dislocated fortunes; although a contemporary 
 asserts that it designated the punishment that most of them 
 merited. Madame de Labran, who was present at one of the 
 Eegent's suppers, was disgusted by the conduct and conversa- 
 tion of the host and his guests, and observed at table, that God, 
 after he had created man, took the refuse clay that was left, 
 and made of it the souls of lacqueys and princes. 
 
 Such was the man that now i-uled the destinies of France. 
 Law found him f uU of perplexities, from the dissistrous state 
 of the finances. He had already tampered with the coinage, 
 calling in the coin of the nation, re-stamping it, and issuing it 
 at a nominal increase of one fifth; thus defrauding the nation 
 out of twenty per cent of its capital. He was not hkely, there- 
 fore, to be scrupulous afcout any means likely to reheve him 
 from financial diflSculties ; he had even been led to listen to the 
 cruel alternative of a national bankruptcy. 
 
 Under these circinnstances. Law confidently brought forward 
 Ms scheme of a bank, that was to pay ofE the national debt, in- 
 crease the revenue, and at the same time diminish the taxes. 
 The following is stated as the theory by which he recommended 
 his system to the Eegent. The credit enjoyed by a banker or 
 a merchant, he observed, increases his capital tenfold ; that is 
 to say, he who has a capital of one hundred thousand livres, 
 may, if he possess suflBcient credit, extend Ms operations to a 
 million, and reap profits to that amoim.t. In like manner, a state 
 that can collect into a bank all the current coin of the kingdom, 
 would be as powerful as if its capital were increased tenfold. The 
 specie must be drawn into the bank, not by way of loan, or by 
 taxations, but m the way of deposit. This might be effected in 
 different modes, either by inspiring confidence, or by exerting 
 authority. One mode, he observed, had already been in use. 
 Each time that a state makes a re-coinage, it becomes momen- 
 tarily the depositary of all the money called in, belongmg to 
 the subjects of that state. His bank was to effect the same 
 purpose ; that is to say, to receive in deposit all the coin of the 
 kingdom, but to give in exchange its biUs, which, being of an 
 invariable value, bearing an interest, and bemg payable on 
 demand, would not only supply the place of coin, but prove a 
 better and more profitable currency. 
 
 The Eegent caught with avidity at the scheme. It suited Ms 
 bold, reckless spirit, and his grasping extravagance. Not that 
 he was altogether the dupe of Law's specious projects; stiU he 
 was apt, like many other men, unskilled in the arcana of 
 
48 THE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 finance, to mistake the multiplication of m.oney for the mul- 
 tiplication of wealth; not understanding that it waa a mere 
 agent or instrument in the interchange of traffic, to represent 
 the value of the various productions of industry ; and that an 
 increased circulation of coin or bank bills, in the shape of cur- 
 rency, only adds a proportionably increased and fictitious 
 value to such productions. Law enlisted the vanity of the 
 Eegent in his cause. He persuaded him that he saw more 
 clearly than others into sutahme theories of finance, which 
 were quite above the ordinary apprehension. He used to de- 
 clare that, excepting the Eegent and the Duke of Savoy, no 
 one had thoroughly comprehended his system. 
 
 It is certain that it met with strong opposition from the 
 Regent's ministers, the Duke de Noailles and the Chancellor 
 d'Anguesseau ; and it was no less strenuously opposed by the 
 Parliament of Paris. Law, however, had a potent though 
 secret coadjutor in the Abbe Dubois, now rising, during the 
 regency, into great pohtical power, and who retained a baneful 
 influence over the mind of the Eegent. This wUy priest, as 
 avaricious as he was ambitious, drew lEirge sums from Law as 
 subsidies, and aided him greatly in many of his most pernicious 
 operations. He aided him, in the present instance, to fortify 
 the mind of the Regent against aU the remonstrances of his 
 ministers and the parliament. 
 
 Accordingly, on the 2d of May, 1716, letters patent were 
 granted to Law, to establish a bank of deposit, discount, and 
 circulation, under the firm of "Law and Company," to con- 
 tinue for twenty years. The capital was fixed at six millions 
 of livres, divided into shares of five hundred Mvres each, which 
 were to be sold for twenty-five per cent of the regent's debased 
 coin, and seventy-five per cent of the pubUc securities ; which 
 were then at a great reduction from their nominal value, and 
 which then amounted to nineteen hundred millions. The os- 
 tensible object of the bank, as set forth in the patent, was to 
 encourage the commerce and manufactures of France. The 
 Jouis d'ors and croTTns of the bank were always to retain the 
 same standard of value, and its bills to be payable in them on 
 demand. 
 
 At the outset, while the bank was limited in its operations, 
 and while its paper really represented the specie in its vaults, 
 it seemed to realize aU that had been promised from it. It 
 rapidly acquired public confidence, and an extended circula- 
 tion, and produced an activity in commerce, unknown under 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 49 
 
 the baneful government of Louis XIV. As the bills of the 
 bank bore an interest, and as it was stipulated they would be 
 of invariable value, and as hints had been artfiiUy circvdated 
 that the coin would experience successive diminution, every- 
 body hastened to the bank to exchange gold and silver for 
 paper. So great became the throng of depositors, and so in- 
 tense their eeigemess, that there was quite a press and struggle 
 at the bank door, and a ludicrous panic was awakened, as if 
 there was danger of their not being admitted. An anecdote of 
 the time relates that one of the clerks, with an ominous smile, 
 called out to the struggling multitude, " Have a Kttle patience, 
 my friends; we mean to take all yourmoney;" an assertion 
 disastrously verified in the sequel. 
 
 Thus, by the simple establishment of a bank. Law and the 
 Eegent obtained pledges of confidence for the consummation of 
 further and more complicated schemes, as yet hidden from the 
 pubhc. In a little while, the bank shares rose enormously, and 
 the amount of its notes in ctrciilation exceeded one hundred 
 and ten miUions of livres. A subtle stroke of pohcy had ren- 
 dered it popular with the aristocracy. Louis XIV. had several 
 years previously imposed an income tax of a tenth, giving his 
 royal word that it shovdd cease in 1717. This tax had been 
 exceedingly irksome to the privileged orders ; and in the present 
 disastrous times they had dreaded an augmentation of it. In 
 consequence of the successful operation of Law's scheme, how- 
 ever, the tax was abohshed, and 'now nothing was to be heard 
 among the nobility and clergy, but praises of the Eegent and 
 the bank. 
 
 Hitherto aU had gone weU, and all might have continued to 
 go well, had not the paper system been further expanded. 
 But Law had yet the grandest part of his scheme to develop. 
 He had to open his ideal world of speculation, his El Dorado 
 of unbounded wealth. The EngUsh had brought the vast 
 imaginary commerce of the South Seas in aid of their bank- 
 ing operations. Law sought to bring, as an immense auxiliary 
 of his bank, the whole trade of the Mississippi. Under this 
 name was included not merely the river so caUed, but the vast 
 region known as Louisiana, extending from north latitude 29° 
 up to Canada in north latitude 40°. This country had been 
 granted by Louis XIV. to the Sieur Crozat, but he had been 
 induced to resign his patent. In conformity to the plea of 
 Mr. Law, letters patent were gra,nted in August, 1717, for the 
 creation of a commercial company, which was to have the 
 
50 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 colonizing of this country, and the monopoly of its trade and 
 resources, and of the beaver or fur trade with Canada. It was 
 called the Western, but became better known as the Missis- 
 sippi Company. The capital was fixed at one hundred mUUons 
 of livre,", divided into shares, bearing an interest of four per 
 cent, which were subscribed for in the public securities. As 
 the bank was to co-operate with the company, the Regent 
 ordered that its bills should bo received the sf-nie as coin, in 
 aU payments of the pubMc revenue. Law was appointed chief 
 director of this company, which was an exact copy of the Earl 
 of Oxford's South Sea Company, set on foot in 1711, and which 
 distracted aU England with the frenzy of speculation. In hke 
 manner with the delusive picturings given in that memorable 
 scheme of the sources of rich trade to be opened in the South 
 Sea countries. Law held forth magnificent pi'ospects of the 
 fortunes to be made in colonizing Louisiana, which was repre- 
 sented as a veritable land of promise, capable of yielding every 
 variety of the most precious produce. Eeports, too, were art- 
 fully circidated, with great mystery, as if to the "chosen 
 few," of mines of gold and silver recently discovered in Loui- 
 siana, and which would insure instant wealth to the early pur- 
 chasers. These confidential whispers of course soon became 
 .public ; and were confirmed by travellers fresh from the Mis- 
 sissippi, and doubtless bribed, who had seen the mines in 
 question, and declared them superior in richness to those of 
 Mexico and Peru. Nay, more, ocular proof was furnished to 
 public creduhty, in ingots of gold conveyed to the mint, as if 
 just brought from the mines of Louisiana. 
 
 Extraordinary measures were adopted to force a coloniza- 
 tion. An edict was issued to collect and transport settlers to 
 the Mississippi. The police lent its aid. The streets and pri- 
 sons of Paris, and of the provincial cities, were swept of mendi- 
 cants and vagabonds of all kinds, who were conveyed to Havre 
 do Grace. About sis thousand were crowded inix) ships, where 
 no precautions had been taken for their health or accommoda- 
 tion. Instruments of all kinds proper for the working of 
 mines were ostentatiously paraded in public, and put on board 
 the vessels ; and the whole set saU for this fabled El Dorado, 
 which was to prove the grave of the greater part of its 
 wretched colonists. 
 
 D'Anguesseau, the chancellor, a man of probity and integ- 
 rity, still Ufted his voice against the paper system of Law, and 
 Ms project of colonization, and was eloquent and prophetic in 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BVBBLE. 5x 
 
 picturing the evils th0y were calculated to produce; the pri- 
 vate distress and public degradation; the corruption of morals 
 and manners; the triumph of knaves and schemers; the ruin 
 of fortunes, and downfall of families. He was incited more 
 and more to this opposition by the Duke de NoaUles, the Min- 
 ister of Finance, who was jealous of the growing ascendancy 
 of Law over the mind of the Eegent, but was less honest than 
 the chancellor in his opposition. The Regent was excessively 
 annoyed by the difficulties they conjured up in. the way of his 
 darling schemes of finance, and the countenance they gave to 
 the opposition of parMament ; which body, disgusted more and 
 more with the abuses of the regency, and the system of Law, 
 had gone so far as to carry its remonstrances to the very foot 
 of the throne. 
 
 He determined to relieve himself from these two ministers, 
 who, either through honesty or policy, interfered with all his 
 plans. Accordingly, on the 28th of January, 1718, he dis- 
 missed the chancellor from office, and exiled him to his estate 
 in the country; and shortly afterward removed the Duke de 
 NoaiUes from the administration of the finances. 
 
 The opposition of parliament to the Eegent and his measures 
 was carried on with increasing violence. That body aspired to 
 an equal authority with the Eegent in the administration of 
 affairs, and pretended, by its decree, to suspend an edict of 
 the regency, ordering a new coinage and altering the value of 
 the currency. But its chief hostility was levelled against 
 Law, a foreigner and a heretic, and one who was considered 
 by a majority of the members in the light of a malefactor. In 
 fact, so far was this hostility carried, that secret measures were 
 taken to investigate his malversations, and to collect evidence 
 against him; and it was resolved in parliament that, should 
 the testimony collected justify their suspicions, they would 
 have him seized and brought before them; would give him a 
 brief trial, and if convicted, would hang him in the coui-t- 
 yard of the palace, and throw open the gates after the execu- 
 tion, that the public might behold his corpse I 
 
 Law received intimation of the danger hanging over him, 
 and was in terrible trepidation. He took refuge in the Palais 
 Royal, the residence of the Regent, and implored his protec- 
 tion. The Regent himself was embarrassed by the sturdy 
 opposition of parliament, which contemplated nothing less 
 than a decree reversing most of his public meas.jres, espe- 
 cially those of finance. His indecision kept Law foi^ a time in 
 
63 THE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 an agony of terror and suspense. Finally, by assembling a 
 board of justice, and bringing to his aid the absolute authority 
 of the King, he triumphed over parliament and relieved Law 
 fio;n his dread of being hanged. 
 
 The system now went on with flowing sail. The Western or 
 Mississippi Company, being identified with the bank, rapidly 
 increased in power and privileges. One monopoly after an- 
 other was granted to it; the trade of the Indian seas; the slave 
 trade with Senegal and Guinea ; the farming of tobacco ; the 
 national coinage, etc. Each new privilege was made a pretext 
 for issuing more bills, and caused an immense advance in the 
 price of stock. At length, on the 4th of December, 1718, the 
 Regent gave the estabUshment the imposing title of The Royal 
 Bank, and proclaimed that he had effected the purchase of all 
 the shares, the proceeds of which he had added to its capital. 
 This measure seemed to shock the public feehng more than 
 any other connected with the system, and roused the indigna- 
 tion of parliament. The French nation had been so accus- 
 tomed to attach an idea of everything noble, lofty, and mag- 
 nificent, to the royal name and person, especially during tho 
 stately and sumptuous reign of Louis XIV., that they coidd 
 not at first tolerate the idea of royalty being in any degree 
 mingled with matters of traffic and finance, and the king 
 being in a manner a banker. It was one of the downward 
 steps, however, by which royalty lost its illusive splendor in 
 France, and became gradually cheapened in the public mind. 
 
 Arbitrary measures now began to be taken to force the 
 bills of the bank into artificial currency. On the 27th of 
 December appeared an order in council, forbidding, under 
 severe penalties, the payment of any sum above six hundred 
 livres in gold or silver. This decree rendered bank bills neces- 
 sary in all transactions of purchase and sale, and called for a 
 new emission. The prohibition was occasionally evaded or 
 opposed ; confiscations were the consequence ; informers were 
 rewarded, and spies and traitors began to spring up in all the 
 domestic walks of hf e. 
 
 The worst effect of this illusive system was the mania for 
 gain, or rather for gambling in stocks, that now seized upon 
 the whole nation. Under the exciting effects of lying reports, 
 and the forcing effects of government decrees, the shares of 
 the company went on rising in value untU they reached 
 thirteen hundred per cent. Nothing was now spoken of but 
 the price of shaies, and the immense fortunes suddenly made 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 53 
 
 by lucky speculators. Those whom Law had deluded used 
 every means to delude others. The most extravagant dreams 
 were indulged, concerning the wealth to flow in upon the com- 
 pany from its colonies, its trade, and its various monopoUes. 
 It is true, nothing as yet had been realized, nor could ia some 
 time be realized, from these distant sources, even if pro- 
 ductive; but the imaginations of speculators are ever in the 
 advance, and their conjectures are immediately converted into 
 facts. Lying reports now flew from mouth to mouth, of sure 
 avenues to fortune suddenly thripwn open. The more extra- 
 vagant the fable, the more readily was it believed. To doubt 
 was to awaken anger, or incur ridicule. In a time of pubUc 
 infatuation, it requires no small exercise of courage to doubt a 
 popular fallacy. 
 
 Paris now became the centre of attraction for the adven- 
 turous and the avaricious, who flocked to it, not merely from 
 the provinces, but from neighboring countries. A stock ex- 
 change was established ia a house ia the Rue Quincarapoix, 
 and became immediately the gathering place of stock-jobbers. 
 The exchange opened at seven o'clock, with the beat of drum 
 and sound of bell, and closed at night with the same signals. 
 Guards were stationed at each end of the street, to maintain 
 order, and exclude carriages and horses. The whole street 
 swarmed throughout the day like a bee-hive. Bargains of aU 
 Mads were seized upon with avidity. Shares of stock passed 
 from hand to hand, moimting ia value, one knew not why. 
 Fortunes were made in a moment, as if by magic ; and every 
 lucky bargain prompted those around to a more desperate 
 throw of the die. The fever went on, increasing in intensity 
 as the day declined; and when the drum beat, and the bell 
 rang, at night, to close the exchange, there were exclamations 
 of impatience and despair, as if the wheel of fortune had sud- 
 denly been stopped when about to make its luckiest evolution. 
 
 To engulf all classes ia this ruinous vortex, Law now split 
 the shares of fifty miUions of stock each into one hundred 
 shares; thus, as in the splitting of lottery tickets, accommo- 
 dating the venture to the humblest purse. Society was thus 
 stirred up to its very dregs, and adventurers of the lowest 
 order hurried to the stock market. All honest, industrious 
 ' pursuits, and modest gains, were now despised. Wealth was 
 to bo obtained instantly, without labor, and without stint. 
 The upper classes were as base in their venality as the lower. 
 The highcDt and most powerful nobles, abandoning aU gene- 
 
54 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 rous pursuits and lofty aims, engaged in the vile scuffle for 
 gain. They were even baser than the lower classes ; for some 
 of them, who were members of the council of the regency, 
 abused their station and their influence, and promoted mea- 
 sures by which shares arose while in their hands, and they 
 made immense profits. 
 
 The Duke de Bourbon, the Prince of Conti, the Dukes de la 
 Force and D'Antin were among the foremost of these illustrious 
 stock-jobbers. They were nicknamed the Mississippi Lords, 
 and they smiled at the sneering title. In fact, the usual distinc- 
 tions of society had lost their consequence, imder the reign 
 of this new passion. Eank, talent, military fame, no longer 
 inspired deference. All respect for others, all self-respect, 
 were forgotten in the mercenary struggle of the stock-market. 
 Even prelates and ecclesiastical corporations, forgetting their 
 true objects of devotion, mingled among the votaries of Mam- 
 mon. They were not behind those who wielded the civil 
 power in fabricating ordinances suited to their avaricious pur- 
 poses. Theological decisions forthwith appeared, in which the 
 anathema launched by the Church against usury, was con- 
 veniently construed as not extending to the traflic in bank 
 shares 1 
 
 The Abbe Dubois entered into the mysteries of stock-jobbing 
 with aU the zeal of an apostle, and enriched himself by the 
 spoils of the credulous; and he continually drew large sums 
 from Law, as considerations for his political influence. Faith- 
 less to his country, in the course of his gambling speculations 
 he transferred to England a great amount of specie, which 
 had been paid into the royal treasury ; thus contributing to 
 the subsequent dearth of the precious metals. 
 
 The female sex participated in this sordid frenzy. Prin- 
 cesses of the blood, and ladies of the highest nobUity, were 
 among the most rapacious of stock-jobbers. The Regent 
 seemed to have the riches of Croesus at his command, and 
 lavished money by hundreds of thousands upon his female 
 relatives and favorites, as well as upon his rou4s, the dissolute 
 companions of his debauches. "My son," writes the Re- 
 gent's mother, in her correspondence, ' ' gave me shares to the 
 amount of two milhons, which I distributed among my houset 
 hold. The King also took several millions for bis own house- 
 hold. All the royal family have had them; all the children 
 and grandchildren of Prance, and the princes of the blood." 
 
 Luxury and extravagance kept pace with this sudden infiar 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 55 
 
 tion of fancied wealth. The hereditary palaces of nobles were 
 pulled down, and rebuilt on a scale of augmented splendor. 
 Entertainments were given, of iacredible cost and magnificence. 
 Never before had been ^uch display in houses, furniture, equi- 
 pages, and amusements. This was particularly the case among 
 persons of the lower ranks, who had suddenly become possessed 
 of millions. Ludicrous anecdotes are related of some of these 
 upstarts. One, who had just launched a splendid carriage, 
 when about to use it for the first time, instead of getting in at 
 the door, mounted, through habitude, to his accustomed place 
 behind. Some ladies of quality, seeing a well-dressed woman 
 covered with diamonds, but whom nobody knew, alight from a 
 very handsome carrifige, inquired who she was of the footman. 
 He replied, with a sneer: "It is a lady who has recently tum- 
 bled from a garret into this carriage." Mr. Law's domestics 
 were said to become in like manner suddenly enriched by the 
 crumbs that fell from his table. His coachman, having made 
 his fortune, retired from his service. Mr. Law requested him 
 to procure a coachman in his place. He appeared the next day 
 with two, whom he pronounced equally good, and told Mr. 
 Law: "Take which of them you choose, and I wiU take the 
 other!" 
 
 Nor were these novi homini treated with the distance and 
 disdain they would formerly have experienced from the haughty 
 aristocracy of France. The pride of the old noblesse had been 
 stifled by the stronger instinct of avarice. They rather sought 
 the intimacy and confidence of these lucky upstarts ; and it has 
 been observed that a nobleman would gladly take his seat at 
 the table of the fortunate lacquey of yesterday, in hopes of 
 learning from him the secret of growing rich ! 
 
 Law now went about with a countenance radiant with suc- 
 cess and apparently dispensing wealth on every side. "He is 
 admirably skilled in aU that relates to finance," writes the 
 Duchess of Orleans, the Eegent's mother, "and has put the 
 affairs of the state in such good order that all the king's debts 
 have been paid. He is so much run after that he has no repose 
 night or day. A duchess even kissed his hand pubhcly. If a 
 duchess can do this, what wiU other ladies do?" 
 
 Wherever he went, his path, we are told, was beset by a 
 sordid throng, who waited to see him pass, and sought to ob- 
 tain the favor of a word, a nod, or smile, as if a mere glance 
 from him would bestow fortune. When at home, his house 
 was absolutely besieged by furious candidates for fortune. 
 
56 Tim CRATON PAPERS. 
 
 "They forced the doors," says the Duke de St. Simon; "they 
 scaled his windows from the garden; they made their way 
 into his cabinet down the chimney !" 
 
 The same venal court was paid by all classes to his family. 
 The highest ladies of the court vied with each other in mean- 
 nesses to purchase the lucrative friendship of Mrs. Law and her 
 daughter. They waited upon them with as much assiduity and 
 cidulation as if they had been princesses of the blood. The 
 Eegent one day expressed a desire that some duchess should 
 accompany his daughter to Genoa. " My Lord," said some ona 
 present, ' ' if you would have a choice from among the duchesses- 
 you need but send to Mrs. Law's ; you will find them, all assem^ 
 bled there." 
 
 The wealth of Law rapidly increased with the expansion o*^ 
 the bubble. In the course of a few months he purchased four- 
 teen titled estates, paying for them in paper; and the public 
 hailed these sudden and vast acquisitions of landed property as 
 BO many proofs of the soundness of his system. In one iastance 
 he met with a shrewd bargainer, who had not the general faith 
 in his paper money. The President de Novion insisted on being!; 
 paid for an estate in hard coin. Law accordingly brought the 
 at.ount, four hundred thousand hvres, in specie, saying, with 
 a sarcastic smile, that he preferred paying in money as its 
 weight rendered it a mere incumbrance. A« it happened, tl^e 
 president could give no clear title to the land, and the money 
 had to be refunded. He paid it back in paper, which Law 
 dared not refuse, lest he should depreciate it in the ma^'ket. 
 
 The course of illusory credit went on triumphantly for eigh- 
 teen months. Law had nearly fulfilled one of bis promises, for 
 the greater part of the public debt had been paid off; but how 
 paid? In bank shares, which had been tramped up several 
 hundred per cent above their value, and -which were to vanish 
 like smoke in the hands of the holders. 
 
 One of the most striking attributes of Law was the impertur- 
 bable assurance and self-possession with which he rephed to 
 every objection, and found a sointion for every problem. He 
 had the dexterity of a juggler m evading difficulties ; and what 
 was peculiar, made figures themselves, which are the very 
 elements of exact domonstration, the means to dazzle and be- 
 wilder. 
 
 Toward the letter end of 1719 the Mississippi scheme had 
 reached its highest point of glory. Half a million of strangers 
 had crowded into Paris, in quest of foi'tune. Tlie hotels and 
 
TITH! GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 57 
 
 lodging-houses -were overflowing; lodgings were procured with 
 excessive difficulty; granaries were turned into bed-rooms; 
 provisions had risen enormously in price; splendid houses 
 were multiplying on every side ; the streets were crowded with 
 cai-riages ; above a thousand new equipages had been launched. 
 
 On the eleventh of December, Law obtained another prohibi- 
 tory decree, for the purpose of sweeping all the remaining 
 specie in circulation into the bank. By this it was forbidden 
 to make any payment in silver above ten livres, or in gold 
 above three hundred. 
 
 The repeated decrees of this nature, the object of which was 
 to depreciate the value of gold, and increase the illusive credit 
 of paper, began to awaken doubts of a system which required 
 such bolstering. Capitalists gradually awoke from their be- 
 wilderment. Soimd and able financiers consulted together, and 
 agreed to make common cause against this continual expansion 
 of a paper system. The shares of the bank and of the company 
 began to decline in value. Wary men took the alarm, and 
 began to realize, a word now first brought into use, to express 
 the conversion of ideal property into something real. 
 
 The Prince of Conti, one of the most prominent and grasping 
 of the Mississippi lords, was the first to give a blow to the 
 credit of the bank. There was a mixture of ingratitude in his 
 conduct that characterized the venal baseness of the times. 
 He had received from time to time enormous sums from Law, 
 as the price of his influence and patronage. His avarice had 
 increased with every acquisition, until Law was compelled to 
 refuse one of his exactions. In revenge the prince immediately 
 sent such an amount of paper to the bank to be cashed, that it 
 required four wagons to bring away the silver, and he had the 
 meanness to loll out of the window of his hotel and jest and 
 exult as it was trundled into his port cochere. 
 
 This was the signal for other drains of like nature. The 
 English and Dutch merchants, who had purchased a gi-eat 
 amount of bank paper at low prices, cashed them at the bank, 
 and carried the money out of the country. Other strangers 
 did the like, thus draining the kingdom of its specie, and leav- 
 ing paper in its place. 
 
 The Eegent, perceiving these symptoms of decay in the sys- 
 tem, sought to restore it to public confidence, by conferring 
 marks of confidence upon its author. He accordingly resolved 
 to make Law Comptroller General of the Finances of France, 
 There was a material obstacle in his way. Law was a Protes- 
 
nS THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 tant, and the Eegent, unscrupulous as he was himself, did not 
 dare publicly to outrage the severe edicts which Louis XIV., 
 in his bigot days, had fulminated against all heretics. Law 
 soon let him know that there would be no diiHculty on that 
 head. He was ready at any moment to abjure his rehgion in 
 the way of business. For decency's sake, however, it was 
 judged proper he should previously be convinced and con- 
 verted. A ghostly instrvictor was soon found, ready to ac- 
 compHsh his conversion in the shortest possible time. This 
 was the Abbe Tencin, a profligate creature of the profligate 
 Dubois, and hke him working his way to ecclesiastical pro- 
 motion and temporal wealth, by the basest means. 
 
 Under the instructions of the Abbe Tencin, Law soon mas- 
 tered the mysteries and dogmas of the Cathohc doctrine ; and, 
 after a brief course of ghostly training, declared himself 
 thoroughly convinced and converted. To avoid the sneers 
 and jests of the Parisian public, the ceremony of abjuration 
 took place at Melun. Law made a pious present of one hun- 
 dred thousand livres to the Church of St. Eoque, and the Abb6 
 Tencin was rewarded for his edifying labors by sundry shares 
 and bank bills ; which he shrewdly took care to convert into 
 cash, having as little faith in the system as in the piety of his 
 new convert. A raore grave and moral community might 
 have been outraged by this scandalous farce ; but the Parisians 
 laughed at it with their usual levity, and contented themselves 
 with making it the subject of a number of songs and epigrams. 
 
 Law now being orthodox in his faith, took out letters of 
 naturalization, and having thus surmounted the iiatorvening 
 obstacles, was elevated by the Eegent to the post of Comp- 
 troUor General. So accustomed had the community become 
 to aU juggles and transmutations in this hero of finance, that 
 no one seemed shocked or astonished at his sudden elevation. 
 On the contrary, being now considered perfectly establish,ed iii 
 place and power, he became more than ever the object of venal 
 adoration. Men of rank and dignity thronged his antecham- 
 ber, waiting patiently their turn for an audience; and titled 
 dames demeaned themselves to take the front seats of the 
 carriages of his wife anc" daughter, as if they had been riding 
 with princesses of the royal blood. Law's head grew giddy 
 with his elevation, and he began to aspire after aristocratical 
 distinction. There was to be a court ball, at which several of 
 the young noblemen were to dance in a ballet with the youth- 
 ful King. Law requested that his son might be admitted into 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 59 
 
 the ballet, and the Regent consented. The young scions of 
 nobility, however, were indignant and scouted the "intruding 
 upst-art." Their more worldly parents, fearful of displeasing 
 the modern Midas, reprimanded them in vaia. The striplings 
 had not yet imbibed the passion for gain, and still held to their 
 high blood. The son of the banker received shghts and annoy, 
 ances on all sides, and the public applauded them for their 
 spirit. A fit of illness came opportunely to reheve the youth 
 from an honor which would have cost him a world of vexations 
 and affronts. 
 
 In February, 1720, shortly after Law's instalment in oflSce, a 
 decree came out uniting the bank -to the India Company, by 
 which last name the whole estabUshment was now known. 
 The decree stated that as the bank was royal, the King was 
 bound to make good the value of its bills ; that he committed 
 to the company the govommont of the bank for fifty years, 
 and sold to it fifty millions of stock belonging to him, for nine 
 himdred milhons; a simple advance of eighteen hundi'ed per 
 cent. The decree farther declared, in the King's name, that 
 he wotild never draw on the bank, vrntU the value of his drafts 
 had first been lodged in it by his receivers general. 
 
 The bank, it was said, had by this time issued notes to the 
 amount of one thousand millions ; being more paper than all 
 the banks of Europe were able to circulate. To aid its credit, 
 the receivers of the revenue were directed to take bank notes 
 of the sub-receivers. AH payments, also, of one hundred livres 
 and upward were ordered to be made in bank notes. These 
 compulsory measures for a short time gave a false credit to the 
 bank, which proceeded to discount merchants' notes, to lend 
 money on jewels, plate, and other valuables, as well as on 
 mortgages. 
 
 Still farther to force on the system an edict next appeared, 
 forbidding any individual, or any corporate body, civil or 
 religious, to hold in possession more than five hundred Mvres 
 in current coin; that is to §^'$1 about seven, louis-d'ors; the 
 ralue of the louis-d'or in papewrbging, at the time, seventy-two 
 livres. All the gold and silver they might have above this 
 pittance was to be brought to the royal bank, and exchanged 
 either for shares or bills. 
 
 As confiscation was the penalty of disobedience to this 
 decree, and informers were assured a share of the forfeitures, 
 a bounty was in a manner held out to domestic spies and 
 traitors ; and the most odious scrutiny was awakened into the 
 
60 I TnS CRA TON PAPERS. 
 
 pecuniary afEairs of families and individuals. The very confi- 
 dence between friends and relatives was impaired, and all the 
 domestic ties and virtues of society were threatened, until a 
 general sentiment of indignation broke forth, that compelled 
 the Eegent to rescind the odious decree. Lord Stairs, the 
 British ambassador, speaking of the system of espionage en- 
 couraged by this edict, observed that it was impossible to 
 doubt that Law was a thorough Catholic, since he had thus 
 established the inquisition, after having already proved iran- 
 substantiation, by changing specie iato paper. 
 
 Equal abuses had taken place under the colonizing project. 
 In his thousand exjjedients to amass capital. Law had sold 
 parcels of land in Mississippi, at the rate of three thousand Mvres 
 for a league square. Many capitalists had pm-chased estates 
 large enough to constitute almost a priacipality ; the only evil 
 was, Law had sold a property which he could not deliver. 
 The agents of pohce, who aided in recruiting the ranks of the 
 colonists, had been guilty of scandalous impositions. Under 
 pretence of taking up mendicants and vagabonds, they had 
 scoured the streets at night, seizing upon honest mechanics, or 
 their sons, and hurrying them to their crimping-houses, for 
 the sole purpose of extorting money from them as a ransom. 
 The populace was roused to indignation by these abuses. The 
 ofQcers of poUce were mobbed in the exercise of their odious 
 functions, and several of them were killed ; which put an end 
 to this flagrant abuse of power. 
 
 In March, a most extraordinary decree of the council fixed 
 the price of shares of the India Company at nine thousand 
 livres each. All ecclesiastical communities and hospitals wore 
 now prohibited from investing money at interest, in anything 
 but India stock. "With aU these props and stays, the system 
 continued to totter. How could it be otherwise, under a des- 
 potic government, that could alter the value of property at 
 every moment? The very compulsory measures that were 
 adopted to establish the credit of the bank hastened its fall; 
 plainly showing there was a want of sohd security. Law 
 caused pamphlets to be published, setting forth, in eloquent 
 language, the vast profits that must accrue to holders of 
 the stock, and the impossibility of the King's ever doing it any 
 harm. On the very back of these assertions came forth an 
 edict of the King, dated the 22d of May, wherein, under pre- 
 tence of having reduced the value of his coin, it was declared 
 necessary to reduce the value oi his bank notes one half, and 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. Q\ 
 
 of the India shares from nine thousand to five thousand 
 livres. 
 
 This decree came like a clap of thunder upon shareholders. 
 They found one half of the pretended value of the paper in 
 their hands annihilated in an instant ; and what certainty had 
 they with respect to the other half? The rich considered them- 
 selves ruined ; those in humbler circumstances looked forward 
 to abject beggary. 
 
 The parhament seized the occasion to stand forth as the 
 protector of the public, and refused to register the decree. It 
 gained the credit of compelling the Eegent to retrace his step, 
 though it is more probable he yielded to the universal burst of 
 public astonishment and reprobation. On the a7th of May the 
 edict was revoked, and bank-bills were restored to their pre- 
 vious value. But the fatal blow had been struck; tljp delusion 
 was at an end. Government itself had lost all public confi- 
 dence, equally with the bank it had engendered, and which its 
 own arbitrary acts had brought into discredit. "All Paris," 
 says the Regentis mother, in her letters, "has been mourning 
 at the cursed decree which Law has persuaded my son to 
 make. I have received anonymous letters, stating that I have 
 nothing to fear on my own account, but that my son shaU be 
 pursued with flre and sword." 
 
 The Eegent now endeavored to avert the odium of his ruin- 
 ous schemes from himself. He affected to have suddenly lost 
 confidence in, 'Law, and on the 29th of May, discharged him 
 from his employ as Comptroller General, and stationed a Swiss 
 guard of sixteen men in his house. He even refused to see 
 him, when, on the following day, he applied at the portal of 
 the Palais Royal for admission: but having played off this 
 farce before the public, ho admitted him secretly the same 
 night, by a private door, and continued as before to co-operate 
 with him in his financial schemes. 
 
 On the first of Jane, the Eegent issued a decree, permitting 
 persons to have as much money as they pleased in their pos- 
 session. Few, however, were in a state to benefit by this 
 permission. There was a run upon the bank, but a royal 
 ordinance immediately suspended payment, until farther or- 
 ders. To relieve the public mind, a city stock was created, of 
 twenty-five millions, bearing an interest of two and a half per 
 cent, for which bank notes were taken in exchange. The bank 
 notes thus withdrawn from circulation, were publicly burned 
 before the Hotel de Ville. The public, however, had lost con- 
 
62 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 fidence in everything and everybody, and suspected fraud and 
 collusion in those who pretended to burn the bills. 
 
 A general confusion now took place in the financial world. 
 Families who had hved in opulence, found themselves sud- 
 denly reduced to indigence. Schemers who had been revelling 
 in the delusion of princely fortune, found their estates vanish- 
 ing into thin air. Those who had any property remaining, 
 sought to secm-e it against reverses. Cautious persons found 
 there was no safety for property in a country where the coin 
 was continually shifting in value, and where a despotism was 
 exercised over pubUc securities, and even over the private 
 purses of individuals. They began to send their effects into 
 other countries; when lo! on the 20th of June a royal edict 
 commanded them to bring back their effects, under penalty of 
 forfeiting twice their value ; and forbade them, under like pen- 
 alty, from investing their money in foreign sto.cks. This was 
 soon followed by another decree, forbidding any one to retain 
 precious stones in his possession, or to sell them to foreigners; 
 all must be deposited in the bank, in exchange for depreciating 
 paper ! 
 
 Execrations were now poured out on all sides, against Law, 
 and menaces of vengeance. What a contrast, in a short time, 
 to the venal incense that was offered up to him 1 ' ' This per- 
 son," writes the Regent's mother, "who was formerly wor- 
 shipped as a god, is now not sure of his life. It is astonishing 
 how greatly terrified he is. He is as a dead man ; he is pale as 
 a sheet, and it is said he can never get over it. My son is 
 not dismayed, though he is threatened on all sides ; and is very 
 much amused with Law's terrors. " 
 
 About the middle of July the last grand attempt was made 
 by Law and the Regent, to keep up the system, and provide 
 for the immense emission of paper. A decree was fabricated, 
 giving the India Company the entire monopoly of commerce, 
 on condition that it would, in the course of a year, reimburse 
 six hundred millions of livres of its bills, at the rate of fifty 
 millions per month. 
 
 On the 17th this decree waq sent to parliament to be regis- 
 tered. It at once raised a storm o t opposition in that assembly ; 
 and a vehement discussion took place. While that was going 
 on, a disastrous scene was passing out of doors. 
 
 The calamitous effects of the system had reaf^hod the hum- 
 blest concerns of human life. Provisions had risen to an 
 enormous price ; paper money was refused at nil the shops ; the 
 
rUE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 03 
 
 people had not wherewithal to buy bread. It had been found 
 absolutely indispensable to relax a Mttle from, the suspension of 
 specie payraents, and to allow smaU sums to be scantily ex- 
 changed tor paper. The doors of the bank and the neighboriag 
 streets were immediately thi-onged with a famishing multitude, 
 seeking cash for bank-notes 01 ten hvres. Bo great was the 
 press and struggle that several persons were stifled and 
 crushed to death. The mob carried three of the bodies to the 
 court-yard of the Palais Royal. Some cried for the Eegent to 
 come forth and behold the effect oi his system; others de- 
 manded the death of Law, the impostor, who had brought this 
 misery and ruin upon the nation. 
 
 The moment was critical, the popular fury was rising to a 
 tempest, when Le Blanc, the Secretary of State, stepped forth. 
 He had previously sent for the military, and now only sought 
 to gain time. SiagUng out six or seven stout fellows, who ^ 
 seemed to be the ringleaders of the mob: "My good fellows," 
 said he, cahnly, "carry away these bodies and place them in 
 some chui'ch, and then come back quickly to me for your pay. " 
 They hnmediately obeyed; a kind of funeral procession was 
 formed; the arrival of troops dispersed those who lingered 
 behind ; and Paris was probably saved from an insurrection. 
 
 About ten o'clock in the morning, aU being qmet, Law ven- 
 tured to go in his carriage to the Palais Royal. He was 
 saluted with cries and curses, as he passed along the streets ; 
 and he reached the Palais Royal in a terrible fright. The 
 Eegent amused himself with his fears, but retained him with 
 him, and sent off his carriage, which was assailod by the mob, 
 pelted with stones, and the glasses shivered. The news of this 
 outrage was comnumicated to parliament in the midst of a 
 furious discussion of the decree for the commercial monopoly. 
 The first president, who hnd been absent for a, short time, re- 
 entered, and communicated the tidings in a whimsical couplet: 
 
 *' Messieurs. Mes'^iPursl bonnp notivelle! 
 Le carrosse de Law est reduite en oarrelle !" 
 
 "(rentlpmen. GpritlemeTi ! e;nnd news! 
 The carriage of Law is shivered to atoms !" 
 
 The members sprang up with jov; "And Law!" exclaimed 
 they, "has he been torn to pieces?" The president was igno- 
 rant of the restilt of the tumult ; whereupon the debate was 
 cut short, the decree ro.iected. and the house adiourned; the 
 members hurrjdng to learn the particulars. Such was the 
 
64 TUE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 levity with which public affairs were treated at that dissolute 
 and disastrous period. 
 
 On the following day there was an ordinance from the king, 
 prohibiting all popular assemblages ; and troops were stationed 
 at various points, and in all public places. The i-egiment of 
 guards was ordered to hold itself in readiness ; and the musque- 
 teers to be at their hotels, with their horses ready saddled. A 
 number of small offices were opened, where people might cash 
 small notes, though with great delay and difficulty. An edict 
 was also issued declaring that whoever should refuse to take 
 bank-notes in the course of trade should forfeit double the 
 amount ! 
 
 The continued and vehement opposition of parhament to the 
 whole delusive system of finance, had been a constant source 
 of annoyance to the Regent ; but this obstinate rejection of his 
 last grand expedient of a cormnercial monopoly, was not to be 
 tolerated. He dciennined to punish that intractable body. 
 The Abbe Dubois and Law suggested a simple mode ; it was to 
 suppress the parliament altogether, being, as they observed, so 
 far from useful, that it was a constant unpediment to the 
 march of public affairs. The Regent was half inclined to Hsten 
 to their advice ; but upon calmer consideration, and the advice 
 of friends, he adopted a more moderate course. On the 20th 
 of July, early in the morning, aU the doors of the parliament- 
 house were taken possession of by troops. Others were sent to 
 surround the house of the first president, and others to the 
 houses of the various members ; who were all at first in great 
 alarm, until an order from the king was put into their hands, 
 to render themselves at Pontoise, in the course of two days, to 
 which place the parliament was thus suddenly and arbitrarily 
 transferred. 
 
 This despotic act, says Voltaire, wovdd at any other time 
 have caused an insurrection; but one half of the Parisians 
 were occupied by their ruin, and the other half by their fancied 
 riches, which were soon to vanish. The president and mem- 
 bers of parhament acquiesced in the mandate without a mur- 
 mur; they even went as if on a party of pleasure, and made 
 every preparation to lead a joyous life in their exile. The 
 musqueteers, who held possession of the vacated parliament- 
 house, a gay corps of fashionable young fellows, amused them- 
 selves with making songs and pasquinades, at the expense of 
 the exiled legislators ; and at length, to pass away time, formed 
 themselves into a mock parliament; elected their presidents 
 
TUE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 65 
 
 ings, ministers, and advocates ; took their seats in due form, 
 arraigned a cat at tlieir bar, in place of the Sieur Law, and after 
 giving it a "fair trial," condemned it to he hanged. In this 
 manner puhhc affairs and public institutions were lightly 
 turned to jest. 
 
 As to the exiled parUament, it lived gayly and luxuriously at 
 Pontoise, at the public expense ; for the Eegent had furnished 
 funds, as usual, with a lavish hand. The first president had 
 the mansion of the Duke de Bouillon put at his disposal, ready 
 furnished, with a vast and delightful garden on the borders of 
 a river. There he kept open house to all the members of par- 
 liament. Several tables were spread every day, all furnished 
 luxuriously and splendidly; the most exquisite wines and 
 liqueurs, the choicest fruits and refreshments, of all Idnds, 
 abounded. A number of small chariots for one and tAvo horses 
 were always at hand, for such ladies and old gentlemen as 
 wished to take an airing after dinner, and card and billiard 
 tables for such as chose to amuse themselves in that way mitil 
 supper. The sister and the daughter of the first president did 
 the honors of the house, and he himself presided there with an 
 air of great ease, hospitality, and magnificence. It became a 
 party of pleasure to drive from Paris to Pontoise, which was 
 six leagues distant, and partake of the amusements and festivi- 
 ties of the place. Business was openly sUghted ; nothing was 
 thought of but am.uscment. The Regent and his govemm.ent 
 were laughed at, and made the subjects of continual pleasant- 
 ries ; while the enormous expenses incurred by this idle and 
 lavish course of life, more than doubled the liberal sums pro- 
 vided. This was the way in which the parliament resented 
 their exile. 
 
 During all this time, the system was getting more and more 
 involved. The stock exchange had some time previously been 
 removed to the Place Vendome ; but the tumult and noise be- 
 coming intolerable to the residents of that polite quarter, and 
 especially to the chancellor, whose hotel was there, the Prince 
 and Princess Carignan, both deep gamblers in Mississippi 
 stock, offered the extensive garden of the Hotel de Soissons 
 as a raUying-place for the worshippers of Mammon. The offer 
 was accepted. A number of barracks were immediately 
 erected in the garden, as offices for the stock-brokers, and an 
 order was obtained from the Eegent, under pretext of police 
 regulations, that no bargain should be Iralid unless concluded 
 in these barracks. The rent of them immediately moimted to 
 
66 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 a hundred Kvfe a month for each, and the whole yielded thes6 
 noble proprietors an ignoble revenue of half a irdllion of Uvres. 
 
 The mania for gain, however, was now at an end. A uni-- 
 versa! panic succeeded. " tauve qui pent!" was the watch- 
 word. Every one was anxious to exchange falhng paper for 
 something of intrinsic and permanent value. Since money 
 was not to be had, jewels, precious stones, plate, porcelain, 
 trinkets of gold and silver, all commanded any price in paper. 
 Land was bought at fifty years' purchase, and he esteemed 
 himself happy who could get it even at this price. Monopohes 
 now became the rage among the noble holders of paper. The 
 Duke de la Force bought up nearly all the tallow, grease, and 
 soap ; others the coffiee and spices ; others hay and oats. For- 
 eign exchanges were eilmost impracticable. The debts of 
 Dutch and English merchants were paid in this fictitious 
 money, aU the coin o? the realm having disappeared. All the 
 relations of debtor and creditor were confounded. With one 
 thousand crowns one might pay a debt of eighteen thousand 
 livres ! 
 
 The Regent's mother, who once exulted in the affluence of 
 bank paper, now wrote in a very different tone: "I have 
 often wished," said she in her letters, "that these bank 
 notes were in the depts of the infernal regions. They have 
 given my son more trouble than relief. Nobody in France 
 has a penny. * * * My son was once popular, but since the ar- 
 rival of this cursed Law, he is hated more and more. Not a 
 week passes, without my receiving letters filled with fright- 
 ful threats, and speaking of him as a tyrant. I have just 
 received one threatening him with poison. When I showed 
 it to him, he did nothing but laugh." 
 
 In the meantime, Law was dismayed by the increasing 
 troubles, and terrified at the tempest he had raised. He was 
 not a man of real courage; and fearing for his personal 
 safety, from popular tumult, or the despair of ruined indi- 
 viduals, he again took refuge in the palace of the Regent. 
 The latter, as usual, amused himself with his terrors, and 
 turned every new disaster into a jest; but he too began to 
 think of his own security. 
 
 In pursuing the schemes of Law, he had no doubt cal- 
 culated to carry through his term of government with ease 
 and splendor; and to enrich himself, his connexions, and his 
 favorites; and had hoped that the catastrophe of the system 
 would not take place until after the expiration of the regency. 
 
THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 67 
 
 He now saw his mistake; that it was impossible much 
 longer to prevent an explosion; and he determined at once 
 to get Law out of the way, and than to charge him. with 
 the whole tissue of delusions of this paper alchemy. He ac- 
 cordingly took occasion of the recall of parliament in De- 
 cember, 1720, to suggest to Law the policy of his avoiding 
 an encounter with that hostile and exasperated body. Law 
 needed no urging to the measure. His only desire was to 
 escape from Paris and its tempestuous populace. Two days be- 
 fore the return of parliament he took his sudden and secret 
 departure. He travelled in. a chaise bearing the arms of the 
 Regent, and was escorted by a kind of safeguard of servants, 
 in the duke's Mvery. His first place of refuge was an estate 
 of the Regent's, about six leagues from Paris, from whence he 
 pushed forward to BruxeUes. 
 
 As soon as Law was fairly out of the way, the Duke of 
 Orleans summoned a councU of the regency, and informed 
 them that they were assembled to dehberate on the state of 
 the finances, and the afEairs of the India Company. Accord- 
 ingly La Houssaye, Comptroller General, rendered a perfectly 
 clear statement, by which it appeared that there were bank 
 biUs in circulation to the amount of two miUiards, seven 
 hundred miUions of livres, without any evidence that this 
 enormous sum had been emitted in virtue of any ordinance 
 from the general assembly of the India Company, which alone 
 had the right to authorize such emissions. 
 
 The council was astonished at this disclosure, and looked 
 to the Regent for explanation. Pushed to the extreme, the 
 Regent avowed that Law had emitted biUs to the amount of 
 twelve hundred millions beyond what had been fixed by or- 
 dinances, and in contradiction to express prohibitions; that 
 the thing being done, he, the Regent, had legalized or rather 
 covered the transaction, by decrees ordering such emissions, 
 which decrees he had antedated. 
 
 A stoinny scene ensued between the Regent and the Duke 
 de Bourbon, little to the credit of either, both having been 
 deeply implicated in the cabalistic operations of the system. 
 In fact, the several members of the council had been among 
 the most venal "beneficiaries" of the scheme, and had inter- 
 ests a-t stake which they were anxious to secure. From all 
 the circumstances of the case, I am inclined to think that 
 others were more to blame than Law, for the disastrous eilects 
 of his financial projects. His bank, had it beenconfined to 
 
68 THE OBATON PAPERS. 
 
 its original limits, and left to the control of its own inter- 
 nal regulations, might have gone on prosperously, and been 
 of great benefit to the nation. It was an institution fitted 
 for a free country; but unfortunately it was subjected to 
 the control of a despotic government, that could, at its pleas- 
 ure, alter the value of the specie withui its vaults, and com- 
 pel the most extravagant expansions of its paper circulation. 
 The vital principle of a bank is security in the regularity of 
 its operations, and the irmnediate convertibility of its paper 
 into coin ; and what confidence could be reposed in an insti- 
 tution or its paper promises, when the sovereign could at 
 any moment centuple those promises in the market, and seize 
 upon all the money in the bank? The compulsory measures 
 used, likewise, to force bank notes into currency, against the 
 judgment of the public, was fatal to the system; for credit 
 must be free and uncontrolled as the common air. The Re- 
 gent was the evil spirit of the system, that forced Law on to 
 an expansion of his paper curency far beyond what he had 
 ever dreamed of. He it was that in a manner compelled the 
 unlucky projector to devise all kinds of collateral companies 
 and monopolies, by which to raise funds to meet the con- 
 stantly and enormously increasing emissions of shares and 
 notes. Law was but like a poor conjuror in the hands of a 
 potent spirit that he has evoked, and that obliges him to go 
 on, desperately and ruinously, with his conjurations. He only 
 thought at the oiitset to raise the wind, but the Regent com- 
 pelled him to raise the whirlwind. 
 
 The investigation of the affairs of the Company by the 
 council, resulted in nothing beneficial to the public. The 
 princes and nobles who had enriched themselves by all kinds 
 of juggles and extortions, escaped unpunished, and retained 
 the greater part of their spoils. Many of the " suddenly 
 rich," who had risen from obscurity to a giddy height of 
 imaginary prosperity, and had indulged in all kinds of vul- 
 gar and ridiculous excesses, awoke as out of a dream, in their 
 original poverty, now made more galhng and humiUating by 
 their transient elevation. 
 
 The weight of the evil, however, fell on more valuable classes 
 of society; honest tradesmen and artisans, who had been 
 seduced away from the safe pursuits of industry, to the 
 specious chances of speculation. Thousands of meritorious 
 famiUes also, once opulent, had been reduced to indigence 
 by a too great confidence in government. There was a gen' 
 
TEE GREAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. gg 
 
 eral derangement in the finances, that long exerted a bane- 
 ful influence over the national prosperity; but the most dis- 
 astrous effects of the system were upon the morals and man- 
 nera of the nation. The faith of engagements, the sanctity 
 of promises in affairs of business, were at an end. Every 
 expedient to grasp present profit, or to evade present difficulty, 
 was tolerated. While such deplorable laxity of principle was 
 generated in the busy classes, the chivalry of France had 
 soiled their pennons ; and honor and glory, so long the idols of 
 the Gallic nobihty, had been tumbled to tiie earth, and tram- 
 pled in the dirt of the stock-market. 
 
 As to Law, the originator of the system, he appears even- 
 tually to have profited but little by his schemes. "He was a 
 quack," says Voltaire, "to whom the state was given to be 
 cured, but who poisoned it with his drugs, and who poisoned 
 himself." The effects which he left behind in France, were 
 sold at a low price, and the proceeds dissipated. His landed 
 estates were confiscated. He carried away with bi-m barely 
 enough- to maintain himself, his wife, and daughter, with de- 
 cency. The chief reHque of his immense fortune was a great 
 diamond, which he was often obliged to pawn. He was in 
 England in 1721, and was presented to George the First. He 
 returned shortly afterwards to the continent; shifting about 
 from place to place, and died in Venice, in 1729. His wife and 
 daughter, accustomed to live with the prodigality of princesses, 
 could not conform to their altered fortunes, but dissipated the 
 scanty means left to them, and sank into abject poverty. " I 
 saw his wife," says Voltaire, "at Bruxelles, as much humili- 
 ated as she had been haughty and triumphant in Paris." An 
 elder brother of Law remained in France, and was protected 
 by the Duchess of Bourbon. His descendants have acquitted 
 themselves honorably, in various public employments; and 
 one of them is the Marquis Lauriiston, some time Lieutenant 
 General and Peer of France. 
 
70 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 DON JUAN. 
 
 A SPECTBAL EESEAROH. 
 
 " I have heard ofspirits walking with agrial bodies, and have been wondered at 
 by others; but I must only wonder at myself, for if they be not mad, I'me come to 
 my own buriall."— SHiKiiBx's " Witty Faibik One." 
 
 Everybody has heard of the fate of Don Juan, the famous 
 libertine of Seville, who for his sins against the fair sex and 
 other minor peccadilloes was hurried away to the infernal 
 regions. His story has been illustrated in play, in pantomime, 
 and farce, on every stage in Christendom. ; until at length it has 
 been rendered the theme of the opera of operas, and embalmed 
 to endless duration in the glorious music of Mozart. I well 
 recollect the effect of this story upon my f eeUngs in my boyish 
 days, though represented in grotesque pantomime; the awe 
 with which I contemplated the momunental -statue on horse- 
 back of the murdered commander, gleaming by pale moonlight 
 in the convent cemetery ; how my heart quaked as he bowed 
 his marble head, and accepted the impious invitation of Don 
 Juan : hoiw each f oot-f aU of the statue smote upon my heart, 
 as I heard it approach, step by step, through the echoing cor- 
 ridor, and beheld it enter, and advance, a moving figure of 
 stone, to the suppertable! But tlien the convivial scene in 
 the charnel-house, where Don Juan returned the visit of the 
 statue; was offered a banquet of skuUs and bones, and on 
 refusing to partake, was hurled into a yawning gulf, under a 
 tremendous shower of fire ! These were accimiulated horrors 
 enough to shake the nerves of the most pantomime-loving 
 school-boy. Many have supposed the story of Don Juan a 
 mere fable. I myself thought so once ; but ' ' seeing is behev- 
 ing." I have since beheld the very scene where it took place, 
 and now to indulge any doubt on the subject would be pre- 
 posterous. 
 
 I was one night perambulating the streets of Seville, in com- 
 pany with a Spanish friend, a curious investigator of the popu- 
 lar traditions and other good-for-nothing lore of the city, and 
 who was kind enough to imagine he had met, in me, with a 
 congenial spirit. In the course of our rambles we were passing 
 by a heavy, dark gateway, opening into the court-yard of a 
 convent, when he laid his hand upon my arm: "Stop!" said 
 he, "this is the convent of San Francisco; there is a story con- 
 
DON JUAN. 71 
 
 nected with it, which I am sure must be known to you. You 
 cannot but have heard of Don Juan and the marble statue." 
 
 " Undoubtedly," replied I, "it has been familiar to me from 
 childhood." 
 
 "Well, then, it was in the cemetery of this very convent 
 that the events took place." 
 
 "Why, you do not mean to say that the story is foimded on 
 fact?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly it is. The circumstances of the case are said 
 to have occurred during the reign of Alfonso XI. Don Juan 
 was of the noble family of Tenorio, one of the most illustrious 
 houses of Andalusia. His father, Don Diego Tenorio, was a 
 favorite of the king, and his family ranked among the deinte- 
 cuatros, or magistrates, of the city. Presuming on his high de- 
 scent and powerful connections, Don Juan set no bounds to his 
 excesses: no female, high or low, was sacred from his pursuit: 
 and he soon became the scandal of Seville. One of his most 
 daring outrages was, to penetrate by night into the palace of 
 Don Gronzalo de Ulloa, commander of the order»of Calatrava, 
 and attempt to cai-ry off his daughter. The household was 
 alarmed ; a scuffle in the dark took place ; Don Juan escaped, 
 but the unfortunate conunander was found weltering in his 
 blood, and expired without being able to name his murderer. 
 Suspicions attached to Don Juan ; he did not stop to meet the 
 investigations of justice, and the vengeance of the powerful 
 family of Ulloa, but fled from Seville, and took refuge with his 
 uncle, Don Pedro Tenorio, at that time ambassador at the court 
 of Naples. Here he remained until the agitation occasioned by 
 the murder of Don Gonzalo had time to subside ; and the scan- 
 dal which the affair might cause to both the families of Ulloa 
 and Tenorio had induced them to hush it up. Don Juan, how- 
 ever, continued his Hbertine career at Naples, until at length 
 his excesses forfeited the protection of his xmcle, the ambassa- 
 dor, and obKged him again to flee. He had made his way back 
 to Seville, trustiug that his past misdeeds were forgotten, or 
 rather trusting to his dare-devil spirit and the power of his 
 family, to carry him through aU difficulties. 
 
 "It was shortly after his return, and while in the height of 
 Ms arrogance, that on visiting this very convent of Francisco, 
 he beheld on a monument the equestrian statue of the mur- 
 dered commander, who had been buried within the walls of 
 this sacred edifice, where the family of UUoa had a chapel. It 
 was on this occasion that Don Juan, in a moment of impious 
 
72 THE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 levity, invited the statue to the banquet, the awful catastrophe 
 of which has given such celebrity to his story." 
 
 '' And pray how much of this story," said I, "is beheved in 
 Seville?" 
 
 "The whole of it by the populace; with whom it has been a 
 favorite tradition since time immemorial, and who crowd to 
 the theatres to see it represented in dramas written long since 
 by Tyrso de Molina, and another of our popular writers. Many 
 in our higher ranks also, accustomed from childhood to this 
 story, would feel somewhat indignant at hearing it treated with 
 contempt. An attempt has been made to explain the whole, 
 by asserting that, to put an end to the extravagancies of Don 
 Juan, and to pacify the family of Ulloa, without exposing the 
 delinquent to the degrading penalties of justice, he was decoyed 
 into this convent under a false pretext, and either plunged into 
 a perpetual dungeon, or privately hurried out of existence: 
 while the story of the statue was circulated by the monks, to 
 account for his sudden disappearance. The populace, how- 
 ever, are not to be cajoled out of a ghost story by any of 
 these plausible explanations; and the marble statue still 
 strides the stage, and Don Jiian is stOl plunged into the in- 
 fernal regions, as an awful warning to all rake-helly young- 
 sters, in like case offending." 
 
 While my companion was relating these anecdotes, we had 
 entered the gate-way, traversed the exterior court-yard of the 
 convent, and made our way into a great Interior court ; partly 
 surrounded by cloisters and dormitories, partly by chapels, 
 and having a large fountain in the centre. The pUe had evi- 
 dently once been extensive and magnificent ; but it was for the 
 greater part in ruins. By the hght of the stars, and of twink- 
 ling lamps placed here and there in the chapels and corridors, 
 I could see that many of the columns and arches were broken ; 
 the walls were rent and riven; while burned beams and rafters 
 showed the destructive effects of fire. The whole place had a 
 desolate air ; the night breeze rustled through grass and weeds 
 fiaunting out of the crevices of the walls, or from the shat- 
 tered columns ; the bat flitted about the vaulted passages, and 
 the owl hooted from the ruined belfry. Never was any scene 
 more completely fitted for a ghost story. 
 
 While I was indidging in picturings of the fancy, proper to 
 such a place, the deep chaunt of the monks from the convent 
 church came swelling upon the ear. " It is the vesper service, " 
 said my companion ; ' ' follow me. " 
 
BON JUAN. 73 
 
 Leading the way across the court of the cloisters, and 
 through one or two ruined passages, he reached the distant 
 portal of the church, and pushing open a "wlcket, cut in the 
 folding-doors, we found ourselves in the deep arched vestibule 
 of the sacred edifice. To our left was the choir, forming one 
 end of the church, and having a low vaulted ceiling, which 
 gave it the look of a cavern. About this were ranged the 
 monks, seated on stools, and chaim.ting from immense books 
 placed on music-stands, and having the notes scored in such 
 gigantic characters as to be legible from every part of the choir. 
 A few hghts on these music-stands dimly illumined the choir, 
 gleamed on the shaven heads of the monks, and threw their 
 shadows on the walls. They were gross, blue-bearded, buUet- 
 headed men, with bass voices, of deep metaUic tone, that re- 
 verberated out of the cavernous choir. 
 
 To our right extended the great body of the church. It was 
 spacious and lofty ; some of the side chapels had gilded grates, 
 and were decorated with images and paintings, representing 
 the suflferings of our Saviour. Aloft was a great painting by 
 MuriUo, but too much in the dark to be distinguished. The 
 gloom of the whole church was but faintly relieved by the re- 
 flected light from the choir, and the glimmering here and there 
 of a votive lamp before the shrine of a saint. 
 
 As my eye roamed about the shadowy pDe, it was struck 
 with the dimly seen figure of a man on horseback, near a dis- 
 tant altar. I touched my companion, and pointed to it: " The 
 spectre statue!" said I. 
 
 "No," replied he; "it is the statue of the blessed St. lago; 
 the statue of the commander was in the cemetery of the con- 
 vent, and was destroyed at the time of the conflagration. 
 But," added he, " as I see you take a proper interest in these 
 kind of stories, come with me to the other end of the church, 
 where our whisperings will not disturb these holy fathers at 
 their devotions, and I will tell you another story, that has been 
 current for some generations in our city, by which you will 
 find that Don Juan is not the only libertine that has been tha 
 object of supernatural castigation in Seville." 
 
 i accordingly followed him with noiseless tread to the farther 
 part of the church, where we took our seats on the steps of an 
 altar, opposite to the stispicious-looking figure on horseback, 
 and there, in a low, mysterious voice, he related to me the fol- 
 lowing narrative : 
 
 " There was once in Seville a gay yotuig fellow, Don Manud 
 
74 TEE CBATON PAPEB8. 
 
 fle Manara by name, who having come to a great estate by the 
 death of his father, gave the reins to his passions, and plunged 
 into all kinds of dissipation. like Don Juan, -whom he seemed 
 to have taken for a model, he became famous for his enter- 
 prises among the fair sex, and weis the cause of doors being 
 barred and windows grated with more than usual strictness. 
 AH in vain. No balcony was too high for him to scale ; no bolt 
 nor bar was proof against his efforts ; and his very name was a 
 word of terror to all the jealous husbands and cautious fathers 
 of Seville. His exploits extended to country as well as city; 
 and in the village dependent on his castle, scarce a rural beauty 
 was safe from his arts and enterprises. 
 
 " As he was one day ranging the streets of Seville, with sev- 
 eral of his dissolute companions, he beheld a procession about 
 to enter the gate of a convent. In the centre was a young fe- 
 male arrayed in the dress of a bride ; it was a novice, who, hav- 
 ing accomplished her, year of probation, was about to take the 
 black veil, and consecrate herself to heaven. The companions 
 of Don Manuel drew back, out of respect to the sacred pageant ; 
 but he pressed forward, with his usual impetuosity, to gain a 
 near view of the novice. He almost jostled her, in passing 
 through thi? portal of the church, when, on her tm-ning round, 
 he beheld Uie countenance of a beautiful village girl, who had 
 been the object of his ardent pursuit, but who had been spirited 
 secretly out of his reach by her relatives. She recognized him 
 at the same moment, and fainted ; but was borne within the 
 grate of the chapel. It was supposed the agitation of the cere- 
 mony ahd the heat of the throng had overcome her. After 
 some time, the curtain which hung within the grate was drawn 
 up : there stood the novice, pale and trembling, surrounded by 
 the abbess and the nuns. The ceremony proceeded ; the crown 
 of flowers was taken from her head ; she was shorn of her silken 
 tresses, received the black veU, and went passively through 
 the remainder of the ceremony. 
 
 "Don Manuel de Manara, on the contrary, was roused to 
 fury at the sight of this sacrifice. His passion, which 
 had almost faded away in the absence of the object now 
 glowed with tenfold ardor, being inflamed by the difficulties 
 placed in his way, and piqued by the measures which had been 
 taken to defeat him. Never had the object of his pursuit ap- 
 peared so lovely and desirable as when within the grate of the 
 convent; and he swore to have her, in defiance of heaven and 
 earth. By dint of bribing a female servant of the convent he 
 
BON JUAN. , 75 
 
 contrived to convey letters to her, pleading his passion in the 
 most eloquent ajid seductive terms. How successful they were 
 is only matter of conjecture ; certain it is, he undertook one 
 night to scale the garden -wall of the convent, either to carry 
 off the mm, or gain admission to her cell. Just as he was 
 mounting the wall he was suddenly plucked back, and a 
 stranger, muffled in a cloak, stood before him. 
 
 " ' Eash man, forbear! ' cried he: 'is it not enough to have 
 violated all human ties? Wouldst thou steal a bride from 
 heaven!' 
 
 " The sword of Don Manuel had been drawn on the instant, 
 and furious at this interruption, he passed it through the body 
 of the stranger, who fell dead at his feet. Hearing approach- 
 ing footsteps, he fled the fatal spot, and mounting his horse, 
 which was at hand, retreated to his estate in the country, at no 
 great distance rrom Seville. Here he remained throughout the 
 next day, fuU of horror and remorse ; dreading lost ho should 
 be known as the murderer of the deceased, and fearing each 
 moment the arrival of the officers of Justice. 
 
 " The day passed, however, -without molestation; and, as the 
 evening approached, unable any longer to endure this state of 
 uncertainty and apprehension, he ventured back to Seville. 
 Irresistibly his footsteps took the direction of the convent ; but 
 he paused and hovered at a distance from the scene of blood. 
 Several persons were gathered round the place, one of whom 
 was busy nailing something against the convent wall. After a 
 while they dispersed, and one passed near to Don Manuel. The 
 latter addressed him, with hesitating voice. 
 
 " ' Senor,' said he, ' may I ask the reason of yonder throng? ' 
 
 " ' A cavalier,' replied the other, ' has boon murdered.' 
 
 " ' Murdered ! ' echoed Don Manuel; ' and can you tell me his 
 name?' 
 
 " ' Don Manuel de Manara,' replied the stranger, and passed 
 on. ' 
 
 "Don Manuel was startled at this'mention of his own name; 
 especially when applied to the mutdered man. He ventured, 
 when it was entirely deserted, to approach tihe fatal spot. A. 
 small cross had been nailed against the wall, as is customary in 
 Spain, to mark the place where a murder has been committed ; 
 and just below it he read, by the twinkling light of a lamp : 
 ' Here was murdered Don Manuel de Manara. Pray to God for 
 his soul ! ' 
 
 " StiU more confounded and perplexed by this inscription, he 
 
76 TUS CRATON PAPERS. 
 
 ■wandered about the streets until the night was far advanced, and 
 all was still and lonely. As he entered the principal square, 
 the light of torches suddenly broke on him, and he beheld a 
 grand fxineral procession moving across it. There was a great 
 train of priests, and many persons of dignified appearance, in 
 ancient Spanish dresses, attending as mourners, none of whom 
 he knew. Accosting a servant who followed in the train, he 
 demanded the name of the defunct. 
 
 " 'Don Manuel de Manara,' was the reply; and it went cold 
 to his heart. He looked, and indeed beheld the armorial bear- 
 ings of his family erablazoned on the funeral escutcheons. 
 Yet not one of his family was to be seen among the mourners. 
 The mystery was more and more incomprehensible. 
 
 " He followed the procession as it moved on to the cathedral. 
 The bier was deposited before the high altar ; the funeral ser- 
 vice was commenced, and the grand organ began to peal 
 through the vaulted aisles. 
 
 "Again the youth ventured to question this awful pageant. 
 'Father,' said he, with trembling voice, to one of the priests, 
 ' who is this you are about to inter? ' 
 
 " ' Don Manuel de Manara! ' repUed the priest. 
 
 " 'Father, 'cried Don Manuel, impatiently, 'you are deceived. 
 This is some imposture. Know that Don Manuel de Manara is 
 alive and well, and now stands before you. / am Don Manuel 
 de Manara ! ' 
 
 " ' Avaunt, rash youth!' cried the priest; 'know that Don 
 Manuel de Manara is dead ! — is dead ! — is dead ! — and we are all 
 soLds from purgatory, his deceased relatives and ancestors, and 
 others that have been aided by masses of his family, who are 
 permitted to come here and pray for the repose of his soul ! ' 
 
 "Don Manuel cast round a fearfud glance upon the assem- 
 blage, in antiquated Spanish garbs, and recognized in their pale 
 and ghastly countenances the portraits of many an ancestor 
 that hung in the family picture-gallery. He now lost all self- 
 command, rushed up to the bier, and beheld the counterpart 
 of himself, but in the fixed and livid lineaments of death. 
 Just at that moment the whole choir burst forth with a ' Ee- 
 quioscat in pace,' that shook the vaults of the cathedral. Don 
 Manuel sank senseless on the pavement. He was found there 
 early the next morning by the sacristan, and conveyed to his 
 home. When sufficiently recovered, he sent for a friar and 
 made a fuU confession of all that had happened. 
 
 " ' My son,' said the friar, ' all this is a miracle and a myp- 
 
DON JUAN. 77 
 
 tery, intended for thy conversion and salvation. The corpse 
 thou hast seen was a token that thou hadst died to sin and the 
 -world ; take warniug by it, and henceforth live to righteous- 
 ness and heaven ! ' 
 
 "Don Manuel did tabe warning by it. Guided by the coun- 
 sels of the worthy friar, he disposed of all his temporal affairs; 
 dedicated the greater part of his wealth to pious uses, espe- 
 cially to the performance of masses for souls in purgatory; 
 and finally, entering a convent, became one of the most zealous 
 ajid exemplary monks in Seville." 
 
 While my companion was relating this story, my eyes wan- 
 dered, from time to time, about the dusky church. Methought 
 the burly coim.tenances of the monks iu their distant choir 
 assumed a pallid, ghastly hue, and their deep metallic voices 
 had a sepulchral sound. By the time the story was ended, 
 they had ended their chant; and, extinguishing their lights, 
 glided one by one, like shadows, through a smaU door in the 
 side of fee choir. A deeper gloom prevailed over the church ; 
 the figure opposite me on horseback grew more and more 
 spectral ; and I almost expected to see it bow its head. 
 
 "It is time to be off," said my companion, '"unless we 
 intend to sup with the statue." 
 
 " I have no relish for such fare or such company," replied I; 
 and, following my companion, we groped our way through the 
 mouldering cloisters. . As we passed by the ruined cem.etery, 
 keeping up a casual conversation by way of* dispelling the 
 loneliaess of the scene, I called to mind the words of the poet: 
 
 -The tombs 
 
 And monumental caves of death look cold. 
 And shoot a chillness to my trembling heartl 
 Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; 
 Nay, speak — and let me hear thy voice; 
 My own affrights me with its echoes. 
 
 There wanted nothing but the marble statiie of the commar-'jf.er 
 striding along the echoing cloisters to complete the haunted 
 scene. 
 
 Since that time I never fail to attend the theatre whenever 
 the story of Don Juan is represented, whether in pantomime 
 or opera. In the sepulchral scene, I feel myself quite at home ; 
 and when the statue makes liis appearance, I greet him as an 
 old acquaintance. "When the audience applaud, I look round 
 
78 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 upon them with a degree of compassion. "Poor souls !" I say 
 to myself, "they think they are pleased; they think they 
 onjoy this piece, and yet they consider the whole as a fiction! 
 How much more would they enjoy it, if like me they knew it 
 to be true— and had seen the very place!" 
 
 BROEK: 
 
 OE THE DTJTOH PAEADISE. 
 
 It has long been a matter of discussion and controversy 
 among the pious and the learned, as to the cituation of the 
 terrestrial paradise whence our first parents were exiled. 
 This question has been put to rest by certain of the faithful in 
 Holland, who have decided in favor of the village of Broek, 
 about six miles from Amsterdam. It may not, they observe, 
 correspond in all respects to the description of the Garden of 
 Eden, handed down from days of yore, but it comes nearer to 
 their ideas of a perfect paradise than any other place on earth. 
 
 This eulogium induced me to make some inquiries as to this 
 favored spot in the course of a sojourn at the city of Amster- 
 dam, and the information I procured fuUy justified the enthu- 
 siastic praises I had heard. The village of Broek is situated in 
 Waterland, in the midst of the greenest and richest pastures of 
 Holland, I may say, of Europe. These pastures are the source 
 of its wealth, for it is famous for its dairies, and for those oval 
 cheeses which regale and perfume the Trhole civilized world. 
 The population consists of about six hundred persons, compris- 
 ing several families which have inhabited the place since time 
 immemorial, and have waxed rich on the products of their 
 meadows. They keep aH their wealth among themselves, 
 intermarrying, and keeping all strangers at a wary distance. 
 They are a " hard money" people, and remarkable for turning 
 the penny the right way. It is said to have been an old rule, 
 established by one of the primitive financiers and legislators of 
 Broek, that no one should leave the village with more than six 
 guilders in his pocket, or return with less than ten; a shrewd 
 regulation, well worthy the attention of modern pohtical 
 economists, who are so anxious to fix the balance of trade. 
 
 What, however, renders Broek so perfect an elysium in the 
 eyes of aU true Hollanders, is the matchless height to which 
 
BROEK. 79^ 
 
 the spirit of cleanliness is carried there. It amounts almost to 
 a religion among the inhabitants, who pass the greater part of 
 their time rubbing and scrubbing, and painting and varnishing ; 
 each housewife vies with her neighbor in her devotion to the 
 scrubbing-brush, as zealous Catholics do in their devotion to 
 the cross ; and it is said a notable housewife of the place in 
 days of yore is held in pious remembrance, and almost canon- 
 ized as a saint, for having died of pure exhaustion and chagrin 
 in an ineffectual attempt to scour a black man. white. 
 
 These particulars awakened my ardent curiosity to see a 
 place which I pictured to myself the very fountain-head of 
 certain hereditary habits and customs prevalent among the 
 descendants of the original Dutch settlers of my native State. 
 I accordingly lost no time in performing a pilgrimage to Broek. 
 
 Before I reached the place I beheld symptoms of the tranquil 
 character of its inhabitants. A little clump-built boat was in 
 full sail along the lazy bosom of a canal, but its sail consisted 
 of the blades of two paddles stood on end, while the navigator 
 sat steering with a third paddle in the stern, crouched down 
 like a toad, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes. I 
 presumed him to be some nautical lover on the way to his 
 mistress. After proceeding a Httle farther I came in sight of 
 the harbor or port of destination of this drowsy navigator. 
 This was the Broeken-Meer, an artificial basin, or sheet of 
 ohve-green water, tranquil as a mUl-pond. On this the village 
 of Broek is situated, and the borders are laboriously decorated 
 with flower-beds, box-trees clipped into all kinds of ingenious 
 shapes and fancies, and little "liist" houses or pavilions. 
 
 I aJighted outside of the village, for no horse nor vehicle is 
 permitted to enter its precincts, lest it should cause defilement 
 of the well-scoured pavements. Shaldng the dust off my feet, 
 therefore, I prepared to enter, with due reverence and circum- 
 spection, this sanctum sanctorum of Dutch cleanliness. I 
 entered by a narrow street, paved with yeUow bricks, laid 
 edgewise, so clean that one might eat from them. Indeed, 
 they were actually worn deep, not by the tread of feet, but by 
 the friction of the sci-ubbing-brush. 
 
 The houses were built of wood, and all appeared to have been 
 freshly painted, of green, yeUow, and -other bright colors. 
 They were separated from each other by gardens and orchards, 
 and stood at some httle distance from the street, with wide 
 areas or courtyards, paved in mosaic, with variegated stones, 
 polished by frequent rubbing. The areas were divided from 
 
80 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 the street by curiously- wrought railings, or balustrades, of iron, 
 surmounted with brass and copper balls, scoured into daszhng 
 eftrulgence. The very trunks of the trees in front of the 
 houses were by the same process made to look as if they had 
 been varnished. The porches, doors, and ^vindow-fraraes of 
 the houses were of exotic woods, curiously carved, and polished 
 like costly furniture. The front doors are never opened, 
 excepting on christenings, marriages, or funerals; on all ordi- 
 nary occasions, visitors enter by the back door. In former 
 times persons "\vrhen admitted had to put on slippers, but this 
 oriental ceremony is no longer insisted upon. 
 
 A poor devil Frenchman who attended upon me as cicerone, 
 boasted with some degree of exultation, of a triumph of his 
 countrymen over the stern regulations of the place. Dm-ing 
 the time that Holland was overrun by the armies of the French 
 Eepublic, a French general, surromided by his whole etat 
 major, who had come from Amsterdam to view the wonders of 
 Eroek, applied for admission at one of these taboo'd portals. 
 The reply was, that the owner never received any one who did 
 not come introduced by some friend. "Very well," said the 
 general, "take my compliTients to your master, and teU him I 
 win return here to-morrow with a company of soldiers, ''pour 
 parler raison avec mon ami Hollandais.'' " Terrified at the 
 i^ea of having a company of soldiers billeted upon him, the 
 owner threw open his house, entertained the general and his 
 retinue with unwonted hospitality; though it is said it cost the 
 family a month's scrubbing and scouring, to restore all things 
 to exact order, after this military invasion. My vagabond in- 
 formant seemed to consider this one of the greatest victories of 
 the republic. 
 
 I walked about the place in mute wonder and admiration. 
 A dead stillness prevailed around, like that in the deserted 
 streets of Pompeii. No sign of life was to be seen, excepting 
 now and then a hand, and a long pipe, and an occasional puff 
 of smoke, out of the window of some ' ' lust-haus" overhanging 
 a miniatuTO canal; and on approaching a little nearer, the 
 periphery in profile of some robustious burgher. 
 
 Among the grand houses pointed out to me were those of 
 Claes Bakker, and Cornelius Bakker, richly carved and 
 gilded, with flower gardens and clipped shrubberies ; and that 
 of the Great Ditmus, who, my poor devil cicerone informed me, 
 in a whisper, was worth two mQlions ; all these were mansions 
 shut up from the world, and only kept to be cleaned. After 
 
BROEK. gi 
 
 having been conducted from one wonder to another of the 
 viUage, I was ushered by my guide into the grounds and 
 gardens of Mynheer Broekker, another mighty cheese-manu- 
 facturer, worth eighty thousand guilders a year. I had re- 
 peatedly been struck with the similarity of all that I had seen 
 in this amphibious little village, to the buildings and land- 
 scapes on Chinese platters and tea-pots; but here I found the 
 similarity complete; for I was told that these gardens were 
 modelled upon Van Bramm's description of those of Yuen min 
 Yuen, in China. Here were serpentine walks, with trelUsed 
 borders; winding canals, with fanciful Cliincse bridges; 
 flower-beds resembling huge baskets, with the flower of "love 
 lies bleeding" falling over to the ground. But mostly had the 
 fancy of Mynheer Broekker been displayed about a stagnant 
 little lake, on which a corpulent Httle pinnace lay at anchor. 
 On the border was a cottage, within wliich were a wooden man 
 and woman seated at table, and a wooden dog beneath, aU the 
 size of life : on pressing a spring, the woman commenced spin- 
 ning, and the dog barked fiu-iously. On the lake were wooden 
 swans, painted to the Mfe; some floating, others on the nest 
 among the rushes; while a wooden sportsman, crouched 
 among the bushes, was preparing his gun to take deadly aim. 
 In another part of the garden was a dominie in his clerical 
 robes, with wig, pipe, and cocked hat ; and mandarins with 
 nodding heads, amid red lions, green tigers, and blue hares. 
 Last of aU, the heathen deities, in wood and plaster, male and 
 female, naked and bare-faced as usual, and seeming to stare 
 with wonder at finding themselves in such strange company. 
 
 My shabby French guide, while he pointed out all these 
 mechanical marvels of the garden, was anxious to let me see 
 that he had too polite a taste to be pleased with them. At 
 every new nick-nack he would screw down his mouth, shrug 
 up his shoulders, take a pinch of snuff, and exclaim : ' ' Ma foi, 
 Monsieur, ces Hollandais sont forts pour ces Mtises lap'' 
 
 To attempt to gain admission to any of these stately abodes 
 was out of the question, having no company of soldiers to 
 enforce a solicitation. I was fortunate enough, however, 
 through the aid of my guide, to made my way into tho 
 Idfcchen of the illustrious Ditmus, and I question whether the 
 parlor would have proved more worthy of observation. The 
 cook, a little wiry, hook-nosed woman, worn thin by incessant 
 action and friction, was bustling about among her kettles and 
 saucepans, with the scullion at her heels, both clattering in 
 
83 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 wooden shoes, which were as clean and white as the milk, 
 pails; rows ox vessels, of brass and copper, regiments of pewter 
 dishes, and portly porringers, gave resplendent evidence of the 
 intensity of their cleanliness ; the very trammels and hangers 
 in the fireplace were highly scoured, and the hurnished face of 
 the good Saiat Nicholas shone forth from the iron plate of the 
 chinmey-back. 
 
 Among the decorations of the kitchen was a printed sheet of 
 woodcuts, representing the various holiday customs of Hol- 
 land, with explanatory rhymes. Here I was deUghted to 
 recognize the joUities of Now Tcra-'c Day; the festivities of 
 Paas and Pinkster, and all the other merry-makings handed 
 down in my native place from the earliest times of New Am- 
 sterdam, and which had been such bright spots in the year in 
 my childhood. I eagerly made myself master of this precious 
 document, for a trifling consideration, and bore it off as a 
 memento of the place ; though I question if, in so doing, I did 
 not carry off with mo the whole current literature of Broek. 
 
 I must not omit to mention that this village is the paradise 
 of cows as well as men ; indeed you woidd almost suppose the 
 cow to be as much an object of worship here, as the bidl was 
 among the ancient Egyptians ; and well does she merit it, for 
 she is in fact the patroness of the place. The same scrupulous 
 cleanliness, however, which pervades everything else, is mani- 
 fested in the treatment of this venerated animal. She is not 
 permitted to perambulate the place, but in winter, when she 
 forsakes the rich pasture, a weU-built house is provided for 
 her, weU painted, and maintained in the most perfect order. 
 Her stall is of ample dimensions; the floor is scrubbed and 
 polished; her hide is daily curried and brushed and sponged to 
 her heart's content, and her tail is daintily tucked up to the 
 ceiling, and decorated with a riband ! 
 
 On my way back through the village, I passed the house of 
 the prediger, or preacher; a very comfortable mansion, which 
 led me to augur well of the state of rehgion in the village. On 
 inquiry, I was told that for a long time the inhabitants lived 
 in a great state of indifference as to religious matters: it was 
 in vain that their preachers endeavored to arouse their 
 thoughts as to a future state; the joys of heaven, as com- 
 monly depicted, were but httle to their taste. At length a 
 dominie appeared among them who struck out in a different 
 vein. He depicted the New Jerusalem as a place all smooth 
 and level; with beautifiil dykes, and ditches, and canals; and 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825. 83 
 
 houses all shining with paint and varnish, and glazed tiles; 
 and where there should never come horse, or ass, or cat, or 
 dog, or anything that could make noise or dirt; but there 
 should be nothing but rubbing and scrubbing, ajid washing 
 and painting, and gUding and varnishing, for ever and ever, 
 amen ! Since that time, the good housewives of Broek have all 
 turned their faces Zion-ward. 
 
 SEETCHES IN PAEIS IN 1825. 
 
 FROM THE TRAVELLING NOTE-BOOK OF GEOFFREY C3BAT0N, 
 
 GENT. 
 
 A Parisian hotel is a street set on end, the grand staircase 
 forming the highway, and every floor a separate habitation. 
 Let me describe the one in which I am lodged, which may 
 serve as a specimen of its class. It is a huge quadrangular 
 pile of stone, built round a spacious paved court. The ground 
 floor is occupied by sh®ps, magazines, and domestic offices. 
 Then comes the entresol, with low ceilings, 3hort windows, 
 and dwarf chambers ; then succeed a succession of floors, or 
 stories, rising one above the other, to the number of Mahomet's 
 heavens. Each floor is like a distinct mansion, complete in 
 itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and sleeping rooms, 
 kitchen, and other conveniences for the accommodation of a 
 fajnUy. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of 
 apartments. Each apartment has its main door of entrance, 
 opening upon the staircase, or landing-places, and locked like 
 a street door. .Thus several families and numerous single per- 
 sons Kve imder the same roof, totally independent of each 
 other, and may Mve so for years without holding more inter- 
 course than is kept up in other cities by residents in the same 
 street. 
 
 Like the great world, this little microcosm has its gradations 
 of rank and style and importance. The Premier, or first floory 
 with its grand saloons, lofty ceilings, and splendid furniture, 
 is decidedly the aristocraticaJ part of the establishment. The 
 second floor is scarcely less aristocratical and magnificent; the 
 other floors go on bssening in splendor as they gain in altitude, 
 and end with the attics, the region of petty tailors, clerks, and 
 
84 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 sewing girls. To make the filling up of the mansion com- 
 plete, every odd nook and corner is fitted up as a joli petit 
 appartement a gargon (a pretty little bachelor's apartment), 
 that is to say, some little dark inconvenient nestling-place for 
 a poor devil of a bachelor. 
 
 The whole domain is shut up from the street by a great 
 porte-cochere, or portal, calculated for the admission of car- 
 riages. This consists of two massy folding-doors, that swing 
 heavily open upon a spacious entrance, passing under J;he front 
 of the edifice into the court-yard. On one side is a spacious 
 staircase leading to the upper apartments. Immediately with- 
 out the portal is the porter's lodge, a small room with one or 
 two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the con- 
 cierge, or porter, and his family. This is one of the most im- 
 portant functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus 
 of the establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his 
 knowledge and consent. The porte-cochere in general is fas- 
 tened by a sliding bolt, from which a cord or wire passes into 
 the porter's lodge. "Whoever wishes to go out must speak to 
 the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without gives 
 a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is unmediately 
 drawn, as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar, the 
 ■visitor pushes it open, and enters. A face presents itself at 
 the glass door of the porter's little chamber; the stranger pro- 
 nounces the name of the person he comes to see. If the person 
 or family is of importance, occupying the first or second floor, 
 the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a 
 visitor is at hand. The stranger in the meantime ascends the 
 great staircase, the highway common to aU, and arrives at the 
 outer door, equivalent to a street door, of the suite of rooms 
 inhabited by his friends. Beside this hangs a. beU-cord, with 
 which he rings for admittance. 
 
 When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, 
 or Hves in some remote part of the mansion less easy to be 
 apprised, no signal is given. The applicant pronounces the 
 name at the porter's door, and is told, "Montez au troisieme, 
 mi quatrieme; somiez h la ports a droite, ou a gauche; 
 ("Ascend to the third or fourth story; ring the bell on the 
 right or left hand door,") as the case may be. 
 
 The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the in- 
 mates of the mansion as do not keep servants ; making their 
 beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing 
 other menial offices, for which they receive a montMy stinend. 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825. 85 
 
 They are also in confidential intercourse with the servants of 
 the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the ia-comers and 
 cut-goers, are thus enahled, by hook and by crook, to learn the 
 secrets and domestic history of every member of the little ter- 
 ritory within the porte-cochdre. 
 
 The porter's lodge is accordingly a great scene of gossip, 
 where all the private affairs of this interior neighborhood are 
 discussed. The court-yard, also, is an assembling place in the 
 evenings for the servants of the different families, and a sister- 
 hood of sewing girls from the entresols and the attics, to play 
 at various games, and dance to the music of their own songs, 
 and the echoes of their- feet, at which assemblages the porter's 
 daughter takes the lead ; a fresh, pretty, buxom girl, generally 
 called'" ia Petite," though almost as taU as a grenadier. 
 These little evening gatherings, so characteristic of this gay 
 country, are countenanced by the various families of the man- 
 sion, who often look down from their Avindows and balconies, 
 on moonlight evenings, and enjoy the simple revels, of their 
 domestics. I must observe, however, that the hotel I am 
 describing is rather a quiet, retired om, where most of the 
 inmates are permanent residents from year to year, so that 
 there is more of the spirit of neighborhood than in the bust- 
 ling, fashionable hotels in the gay parts of Paris, which are 
 continually changing their inhabitants. 
 
 MY FRENCH NEIGHBOR. 
 
 I OFTEN amuse myself by watching from my window (which, 
 by the bye, is tolerably elevated), the movements of the teem- 
 ing little world below me; and as I am on sociable terms with 
 the porter and his wife, I gather from them, as they light my 
 fire, or serve my breakfast, anecdotes of all my feUow lodgers. 
 I have been somewhat curious in studying a little antique 
 Frenchman, who occupies one of the jolie chambres d, gargon 
 already mentioned. He is one of those superannuated veterans 
 who flourished before the revolution, and have weathered aU 
 the storms of Paris, in consequence, very probably, of being 
 fortunately too insignificant to attract attention. He has a 
 small income, which he manages with the skill of a French 
 economist; appropriating so much for his lodgings, so much 
 for his meals; so much for his visits to St. Cloud and ¥or- 
 saiUes, and so much for his seat at the theatre. He has resided 
 in the hotel for years, and always in the same chamber, which 
 
86 THE ORATON PAPERS. 
 
 he fumislies at his own expense. The decorations of the room 
 mark his various ages. There are some gallant pictures which 
 he hung up in his younger days ; with a portrait of a lady of 
 rank, whom he speaks tenderly of, dressed in the old French 
 taste ; and a pretty opera dancer, pirouetting in a hoop petti- 
 coat, who lately died at a good old age. In a comer of this 
 picture is stuck a prescription for rheumatism, and below it 
 stands an easy-chair. He has a small parrot at the window, 
 to amuse him when within doors, and a pug dog to accompany 
 him in his daily peregrinations. While I am writing he is 
 crossing the court to go out. He is attired in his best coat, of 
 sky-blue, and is doubtless bound for the TxiUeries. His hair is 
 dressed in the old style, with powdered ear-locks and a pig-tail. 
 His little dog trips after him, sometimes on four legs, some- 
 times on three, and looking as if his leather small-clothes were 
 too tight for him. Now the old gentleman stops to have a 
 word with an old crony who lives in the entresol, and is just 
 returning from his promenade. Now they take a pinch of 
 snuff together; now they pull out huge red cotton handkcr- 
 cbiefs (tiiose "flags of abomination," as they have well been 
 called) and blow their noses most sonorously. Now they turn 
 to make remarks upon their two little dogs, who are exchang- 
 ing the morning's salutation ; now they part, and my old gen- 
 tleman stops to have a passing word with the porter's wife; 
 and now he sallies forth, and is fairly launched upon the town 
 for the day. 
 
 No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so 
 scrupulous in measuring and portioning out his time as he 
 whose time is worth nothing. The old gentleman in question 
 has his exact hom' for rising, and for shavmg liimself by a 
 small mirror hung against his casement. He saUies forth ar a 
 certain hour every morning to take his cup of coffee and his 
 roll at a certain cafe, where he reads the papers. He has been 
 a regular admirer of the lady who presides at the bar, and 
 always stops to have a little badinage with her en passant. 
 He has his regular walks on the Boulevards and in the Palais 
 Eoyal, where he sets his watch by the petard fired off by the 
 sun at mid-day. He has his daily resort in the Garden of the 
 Tiuleries, to meet with a knot of veteran idlers like himself, 
 who talk on pretty much the same subjects whenever they 
 meet. He has been present at all the sights and shows and 
 rejoicings of Paris for the last fifty years; has witnessed the 
 great events of the revolution; the guiRotimng of the king and 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825. 87 
 
 queen; the coronation of Bonaparte; the capture of Paris, and 
 the restoration of the Bourbons. All these he speaks. of with 
 the coolness of a theatrical critic ; and I question whether he 
 has not been gratified by each in its turn; not from any inher- 
 ent love of tumult, biit from that insatiable appetite for spec- 
 tacle which prevails among the inhabitants of this metropolis. 
 I have been amused with a 'farce, in which one of these syste- 
 matic old triflers is represented. He sings a song detailing his 
 whole day's round of insignificant occupations, and goes to bed 
 delighted with the idea that his next day will be an exact repe- 
 tition of the same routine : 
 
 '• Je me couche le soir. 
 Enchants de pouvoir 
 Eecominencer mon train 
 Le Itindemain 
 Matin." 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN AT PARIS. 
 
 In another part of the hotel a handsome suite of rooms is 
 occupied by an old English gentleman, of great probity, some 
 understanding, and very considerable crustiaess, who has come 
 to France to live economically. He has a very fair property, 
 but his wife, being of that blessed kind compared in Scripture 
 to the fruitful viae, has overwhelmed him with a family of 
 buxom daughters, who hang clustering about him, ready to be 
 gathered by any hand. He is seldom to be seen in public with- 
 out one hanging on each arm, and smiling on all the world, 
 while his own mouth is drawn down at each comer like a mas- 
 tiff's with internal growling at everything about him. He ad- 
 heres rigidly to English fashion in dress, and trudges about in 
 long gaiters and broad-brimmed hat; while his daughters 
 almost overshadow him with feathers, flowers, and French 
 bonnets. 
 
 He contrives to keep up an atmosphere of English habits, 
 opinions, and prejudices, and to carry a semblance of London 
 into the very heart of Paris. His mornings are spent at Gahg- 
 nani's news-room, where he forms one of a knot of inveterate 
 quidnuncs, who read the same articles over a dozen times 
 in a dozen different papers. He generally dines in company 
 with some of his own countrymen, and they have what is 
 called a "comfortable sitting" after dinner, in the English 
 fashion, drinking wine, discussing the news of the London 
 papers, and canvassing the French character, the French mer 
 
88 THE CSA TON PAPSRS. 
 
 tropolis, and the French revolution, ending with a unanimous 
 adniission of English courage, English morality, English cook- 
 ery, EngUsh wealth, the magnitude of London, and the ingrati- 
 tude of the French. 
 
 His evenings are chiefly spent at a club of his countrymen, 
 whore the London papers are taken. Sometimes his daughters 
 entice him to the theatres, but not often. He abuses French 
 tragedy, as all fustian and bombast, Talma as a ranter, and 
 Ducliesnois as a mere termagant. It is true his ear is not suffi- 
 ciently familiar with the language to understand French verse, 
 and he generally goes to sleep during the performance. The 
 wit of the French comedy is flat and pointless to him. He 
 would not give one of Munden's wry faces, or Listen's inex- 
 pressible looks, for the whole of it. 
 
 He wfll not admit that Paris has any advantage over London. 
 The Seine is a muddy rivulet in comparison with the Thames; 
 the West End of London surpasses the finest parts of the 
 French capital; and on some one's observing that there was 
 a very tMck fog out of doors: "Pish!" said he, crustily, "it's 
 nothing to the fogs we have in London." 
 
 He has infinite trouble in bringing his table into anything 
 like conformity to EngHsh rule. With his liquors, it is true, 
 he is tolerably successful. He procures London porter, and a 
 stock of port and sherry, at considerable expense ; for he ob- 
 serves that he cannot stand those cursed thin French wines, 
 they dilute his blood so much as to give him the rheumatism. 
 As to their white wines, he stigmatizes them as mere substitutes 
 for cider; and as ^to claret, why "it would be port if it could." 
 He has continual quarrels with his French cook, whom he 
 renders wretched by insisting on his conforming to Mrs. Glass ; 
 for it is easier to convert a Frenchman from his religion than 
 his cookery. The poor felloAv, by dint of repeated efforts, once 
 brought himself to serve up ros bif sufficiently raw to suit what 
 he considered the cannibal taste of his master ; but then he 
 could not refrain, at the last moment, adding some exquisite 
 sauce, that put the old gentleman in a fury. 
 
 He detests wood-fires, and has procured a quantity of coal ■ 
 but not having a grate, he is obliged to burn it on the hearth. 
 Here he sits poking and stirring the fire with one end of a tone's 
 while the room is as murky as a smithy ; railing at French 
 chimneys, French masons, and French architects; giving a 
 poke at the end of every sentence, as though he were stirring 
 up the very bowels of the delinquents he is anathematizing. 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IST 1835. 89 
 
 He lives in a state militant with, inanimate objects around him ; 
 gets into high dudgeon with doors and casements, because they 
 will not come under English law, and has implacable feuds 
 with sundry refractory pieces of furniture. Among those is 
 one in particular with which he is sure to have a high quarrel 
 every time he goes to dress. It is a commode, one of those 
 smooth, polished, plausible pieces of French furniture, that 
 have the perversity of five hundred devils. Each drawer has a 
 wiU of its own ; will open or not, just as the whim takes it, and 
 sets lock and key at defiance. Sometimes a drawer will refuse 
 to yield to either persuasion or force, and wiU part with both 
 handles rather than yield ; another will come out in the most 
 coy and coquettish manner imagiuable; elbowing along, zig- 
 zag; one corner retreating as the other advances; making a 
 thousand difficulties and objections at every move ; until tho 
 old gentleman, out of all patience, gives a sudden jerk, and 
 brings drawer and contents into the middle of the floor. 
 His hostility to this unlucky piece of furniture increases every 
 day, as if incensed that it does not grow better. He is hke the 
 fretful invalid who cursed his bed, that the longer he lay tho 
 harder it grew. The only benefit he has. derived from the 
 quarrel is, that it has furnished him with a crusty joke, which 
 he utters on aU occasions. He swears that a French commode 
 is the most incommodious thing in existence, and that although 
 the nation cannot make a joint-stool that will stand steady, yet 
 they are always talking of everything's being perfection6e. 
 
 His servants understand his humor, and avail themselves of 
 it. He was one day disturbed by a pertinacious rattling and 
 shaking at one of the doors, and bawled out in an angry tone 
 to know the cause of the disturbance. "Sir," said the foot- 
 man, testily, "it's this confounded French lock !" " Ah !" said 
 the old gentleman, pacified by this hit at the nation, "I 
 thought there was something French at the bottom of it I" 
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH CHARACTER. 
 
 As I am a mere looker-on in Europe, and hold myself aa 
 much as possible aloof from its quarrels and prejudices, I feel 
 something like one overlooking a game, who, without any 
 great skill of his own, can occasionally perceive the blunders 
 of much abler players. This neutraUty of feeling enables me 
 to enjoy the contrasts of character presented in this time of 
 general peace, when the various people of Europe, who have so 
 
90 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 long been sundered by wars, are brought together and placed 
 side by side in this great gathering-place of nations. No 
 greater contrast, however, is exhibited than that of the 
 I'rench and English. The peace has deluged this gay capital 
 with English visitors of all ranks and conditions. They 
 throng every place of curiosity and amusement ; fill the pub- 
 lic gardens, the galleries, the cafes, saloons, theatres; always 
 herding together, never associating with the French. The 
 two nations are like two threads of different colors, tangled 
 together but never blended. 
 
 In fact, thqgr present a continual antithesis, and seem to value 
 themselves upon being unlike each other; yet each have their 
 peculiar merits, which should entitle them to each other's 
 esteem. The French intellect is quick and active. It flashes 
 its way into a subject with the rapidity of lightning; seizes 
 upon remote conclusions with a sudden bound, and its deduc- 
 tions are almost intuitive. The English intellect is less rapid, 
 but more persevering; less sudden, but more sure in its deduc- 
 tions. The quickness and mobility of the French enable them 
 to find enjoyment in the multiplicity of sensations. They 
 speak and act more from immediate impressions than from 
 reflection and meditation. They are therefore more social and 
 communicative; more fond of society, and of places of pubHc 
 resort and amusement. An Englishman is more reflective in 
 his habits. He lives in the world of his own thoughts, and 
 seems more self-existent and self-dependent. He loves the 
 quiet of his own apartment ; even when abroad, he in a man- 
 ner makes a little solitude around him, by his silence and 
 reserve; he moves about shy and solitary, and as it were 
 buttoned up, body and soul. 
 
 The French are great optimists ; they seize upon every good 
 as it flies, and revel in the passing pleasure. The Englishmap 
 is too apt to neglect the present good, in preparing against the 
 possible evil. However adversities may lower, let the sun 
 shine but for a moment, and forth salhes the mercurial French- 
 man, in holiday dress and holiday spirits, gay as a butterfly, 
 as though his sunshine were perpetual ; but let the sun beam 
 never so brightly, so there be but a cloud in the horizon, the 
 wary Englishman ventures forth distrustfully, with his um- 
 brella in his hand. 
 
 The Frenchman has a wonderful facility at turning small 
 things to advantage. No one can be gay and luxurious on 
 smaller means ; no one requires less expense to be happy. He 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1835. 9t 
 
 practises a kind of gUding in his style of living, and hammers 
 out every guinea into gold leaf. The Englishman, on the con- 
 trary, is expensive in his habits, and expensive in his enjoy- 
 ments. He values everything, whether useful or ornamental, 
 by what it costs. He has no satisfaction in show, unless it be 
 solid and complete. Everything goes with him by the square 
 foot. Whatever display he makes, the depth is sure to equal 
 the surface. 
 
 The Frenchman's habitation, like himself, is open, cheerful, 
 bustling, and noisy. He lives in a part of a great hotel, with 
 wide portal, paved court, a spacious dirty stone staircase, and 
 a family on every floor. All is clatter and chatter. He is good 
 humored and talkative with his servants, sociable with his 
 neighbors, and complaisant to all the world. Anybody has 
 access to himself and his apartments; Ms very bed-room is 
 open to visitors, whatever may be its state of confusion ; and 
 aU this not from any peculiarly hospitable feeling, but from 
 that communicative habit which predominates over his char- 
 acter. 
 
 The Englishman, on the contrary, ensconces himself in a snug 
 brick mansion, which he has all to himself; locks the front 
 door; puts broken bottles along his walls, and spring-guns and 
 man-traps in his gardens; shrouds himself with trees and 
 window-curtains; exults in his <![uiet and privacy, and seems 
 disposed to keep out noise, daylight, and company. His house, 
 like himself, has a reserved, inhospitable exterior; yet whoever 
 gains admittance is apt to find a warm heart and warm fireside 
 within. 
 
 The French excel in wit, the EngHsh in hmnor; the French 
 have gayer fancy, the English richer imagination. The former 
 arc full of sensibility; easily moved, and prone to sudden and 
 great excitement; but their excitement is not durable; the 
 English are more phlegmatic; not so readily affected,, but capa- 
 ble of being aroused to gxeat enthusiasm. The faults of these 
 opposite temperaments are that the vivacity of the French is 
 apt to sparkle up and be frothy, the gravity of the Enghsh to 
 settle down and grow muddy. When the two characters can 
 be fixed in a medium, the French kept from effervescence and 
 the English from stagnation, both wiU be found excellent. 
 
 This contrast of character may also be noticed in the great 
 concerns of the two nations. The ardent Frenchman is all for 
 military renown; he fights for glory, that is to say for success 
 in arms. For, provided the national flag is victorious, ho cares 
 
92 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 little about the expense, the injustice, or the inutility of the 
 ■war. It is wonderful how the poorest Frenchman will revel on 
 a triumphant bulletin; a great victory is meat and drink to 
 him; and at the sight of a mihtary sovereign, bringing home 
 captured cannon and captured standards, he throws up his 
 greasy cap in the air, and is ready to jump out of his wooden 
 shoes for joy. 
 
 John Bull, on the contrary, is a reasoning, considerate per- 
 son. If he does wrong, it is in the most rational way imagin- 
 able. He fights because the good of the world requires it. He 
 is a moral person, and makes war upon his neighbor for the 
 maintenance of peace and good order, and sound principles. 
 He is a money -making personage, and fights for the prosperity 
 of commerce and manufactures. Thus the two nations have 
 been fighting, time out of mind, for glory and good. The 
 French, in pursuit of glory, have had their capital twice taken; 
 and John in pursuit of good, has run himself over head and 
 ears in debt. 
 
 THE TUILBRIE8 AND WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 I HAVE sometimes fancied I could discover national charac- 
 teristics in national edifices. In the Chateau of the TuUeries, 
 for instance, I perceive the same jumble of contrarieties that 
 marks the French character ; the same whimsical mixture of 
 the great and the little ; the splendid and the paltry, the sub- 
 lime and the grotesque. On visiting this famous pile, the first 
 thing that strikes both eye and oar is military display. The 
 courts ghtter with steel-clad soldiery, and resound with the 
 tramp of horse, the roU of drum, and the bray of trumpet. 
 Dismounted guardsmen patrol its arcades, with loaded carbines, 
 jinghng spurs, and clanking sabres. Gigantic grenadiers are 
 posted about its staircases: young officers of the guards loU 
 from, the balconies, or lounge in groups upon the terraces ; and 
 the gleam of bayonet from window to window, shows that 
 sentinels are pacing up and down the corridors and ante- 
 chambers. The first floor is brilliant with the splendors of a 
 court. French taste has tasked itscK in adorning the sump- 
 tuous suites of apartments ; nor are the gilded chapel and the 
 splendid theatre forgotten, where piety and pleasure are next- 
 door neighbors, and harmonize together with perfect French 
 Menseance. 
 
 Mingled up with all this regal and military magnificence, is 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1835. 93 
 
 a world of whimsical and makeshift detail. A great part of 
 the huge edifice is cut up into little chambers and nestling- 
 places for retainers of the court, dependants on retainers, and 
 hangers-on of dependants. Some are squeezed into narrow 
 entresols, those low, dark, intermediate slices of apartments 
 between floors, the inhabitants of which seem shoved in edge- 
 ways, like books between narrow shelves ; others are perched 
 like swallows, undes the eaves ; the high roofs, too, which are 
 as tall and steep as a French cocked-hat, have rows of little 
 dormer windows, tier above tier, just large enough to admit 
 light and air for some dormitory, and to enable its occupant 
 to peep out at the sky. Even to the very ridge of the roof, 
 may be seen here and there one of these air-holes, with a stove- 
 pipe beside it, to carry off the smoke from the handful of fuel 
 with which its weazen-faced tenant simmers his demi-tasse of 
 cofiEee. 
 
 On approaching the palace from the Pont Royal, you take ia 
 at a glance aU the various strata of inhabitants ; the garreteer 
 in the roof; the retainer in the entresol; the courtiers at the 
 casements of the royal apartments ; while on the ground-floor 
 a steam of savory odors and a score or two of cooks, in white 
 caps, bobbing their heads about the windows, betray that 
 scientific and all-important laboratory, the Eoyal Eitchen. 
 
 GrO into the grand ante-chamber of the royal apartments on 
 Simday and see the mixture of Old and New France ; the old 
 emigres, returned with the Bourbons ; little withered, spindle- 
 shanked old noblemen, clad in court dresses, that figured in 
 these saloons before the revolution, and have been carefully 
 treasured up during their exile ; with the solitaires and ailes de 
 pigeon of former days ; and the court swords strutting out be- 
 hind, like pins stuck through dry bottles. See them haunting 
 the scenes of their former splendor, in hopes of a restitution of 
 estates, like ghosts haunting the vicinity of buried treasure ; 
 while around them you see the Young France, that have grown 
 up in the fighting school of Napoleon ; aU equipped en militaire; 
 tall, hardy, frank, vigorous, sun-burned, fierce- whiskered ; 
 with tramping boots, towering crests, and glittering breast- 
 plates. 
 
 It is incredible the nimiber of ancient and hereditary feeders 
 on royalty said to be housed in this establishment. Indeed all 
 the royal palaces abound with noble families returned from 
 exile, and who have nestling-places allotted them while they 
 await the restoration of their estates, or the much-talked-of 
 
94 THE ChATON PAPERS. 
 
 law, indemnity. Some of them have fine quarters, but poor 
 living. Some families have but five or six hundred francs a 
 year, and all their retinue consists of a servant woman. With 
 all this, they maiutain their old aristocratical hauteur, look 
 down with vast contempt upon the opulent families wMch have 
 risen since the revolution; stigmatize them all as parvenus, or 
 upstarts, and refuse to visit them. 
 
 In regarding the exterior of the Tuileries, with all its out- 
 ward signs of internal populousness, I have often thought 
 what a rare sight it would be to see it suddenly unroofed, and 
 all its nooks and comers laid open to the day. It would be 
 like turning up the stump of an old tree, and dislodging the 
 world of grubs, and ants, and beetles lodged beneath. Indeed 
 there is a scandalous anecdote current, that in the time of one 
 of the petty plots, when petards were exploded under the win- 
 dows of the Tuileries, the police made a sudden investigation 
 of the palace at four o'clock in the morniag, when a scene of 
 the most whimsical confusion ensued. Hosts of supernume- 
 rary inhabitants were found foisted into the huge edifice; 
 every rat-hole had its occupant; and places which had been 
 considered as tenanted only by spiders, were found crowded 
 virith a surreptitious population. It is added, that many ludi- 
 crous accidents occurred; great scampering and slamming of 
 doors, and whisking away in night-gowns and slippers; and 
 several persons, who were found by accident in their neigh- 
 bors' cham.bers, evinced indubitable astonishment at the cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 As I have fancied I could read the French character in the 
 national palace of the Tuileries, so I have pictured to myself 
 some of the traits of John Bull in his royal abode of Windsor 
 Castle. The Tuileries, outwardly a peaceful palace, is in effect 
 a swaggering military hold ; while the old castle, on the con- 
 trary, in spite of its bullying look, is completely under petti- 
 coat government. Every comer and nook is built up into 
 some snug, cosy nesthng-place, some "procreant cradle," not 
 tenanted by meagre expectants or whiskered warriors, but by 
 sleek placemen ; knowing reaJizers of present pay and present 
 pudding; who seem placed there not to kill and destroy, but 
 to breed and multiply. Nursery-maids and children shine 
 with rosy faces at the windows, and swarm about the courts 
 and terraces. The very soldiers have a pacific look, and when 
 off duty may be seen loitering about the place with the nursery- 
 maids ; not making love to them in the gay gallant style of the 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1835. . 95 
 
 French soldiery, but with infinite bonhomie aiding them to 
 take care of the broods of children. 
 
 Though the old castle is in decay, everything about it thrives ; 
 the very crevices of the walls are tenanted by swallows, rooks, 
 and pigeons, aU sure of quiet lodgment; the ivy strikes its 
 roots deep in the fissures, and flourishes about the mouldering 
 tower.* Thus it is with honest John; according to his own 
 account, he is ever goiag to ruin, yet everything that hves on 
 him, thrives and waxes fat. He would fain be a soldier, and 
 swagger like his neighbors; but his domestic, quiet-loving, 
 uxorious nature continually gets the upper hand; and though 
 he may mount his helmet and gird on his sword, yet he is apt 
 to sink into the plodding, pains-taking father of a family ; with 
 a troop of children at his heels, and his women-kind hajiging 
 on each arm. 
 
 THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. ' 
 
 I HAVE spoken heretofore with some levity of the contrast 
 that exists between the English and French character; but it 
 deserves more serious consideration. They are the two great 
 nations of modem times most diametrically opposed, and most 
 worthy of each other's rivalry; essentially distinct in their 
 characters, excelMng in opposite qualities, and reflecting lustre 
 on each other by their very opposition. In nothing is this con- 
 trast more strikingly evinced than in their military conduct. 
 For ages have they been contending, and for ages have they 
 crowded each other's history with acts of splendid heroism. 
 Take the battle of Waterloo, for instance, the last and most 
 memorable trial of their rival prowess. Nothing could surpass 
 the brilliant daring on the one side, and the steadfast enduring 
 on the other. The French cavalry broke like waves on the 
 compact squares of English infantry. They were seen gallop- 
 ing round those serried walls of men, seeking in vain for an 
 entrance; tossing their arms in the air, in the heat of their 
 enthusiasm, and braving the whole front of battle. The 
 British troops, on the other hand, forbidden to move or fire, 
 stood firm and enduring. Their columns were ripned up by 
 cannonry; whole rows were swept down at a shot; the sur- 
 vivors closed their ranks, and stood firm. In this way many 
 
 * The aboTe sketch was written before tbe thorough repairs and magnificent 
 additions that have been made of late years to Windsor Castle. 
 
gg THE CRAYON I'APKRS 
 
 columns stood through the pelting oi the iron tempest without 
 firing a shot; \vithout any action to stir their blood, or excite 
 their spirits. Death thinned their ranks, but could not shake 
 their souls. 
 
 A beautiful instance of the quick and generous impulses to 
 which the French- are prone, is given in the case of a French 
 cavalier, in the hottest of the action, charging furiously upon a 
 British officer, but perceiving in the moment of assault that his 
 adversary had lost his sword-arm, dropping the point of his 
 sabre, and courteously riding on. Peace be with that generous 
 warrior, whatever were his fate! If he went down in the 
 storm of battle, with the foundering fortunes of his chieftain, 
 may the turf of Waterloo grow green above his grave 1 and 
 happier far would be the fate of such a spirit, to sink amid the 
 tempest, unconscious of defeat, than to survive, and mourn 
 over the blighted laurels of his coimtry. 
 
 In this way the two armies fought through a long and bloody 
 day. The French with enthusiastic valor, the Enghsh with 
 cool, inflexible courage, until Fate, as if to leave the question 
 of superiority still undecided between two such adversaries, 
 brought up the Prussians to decide the fortunes of the field. 
 
 It was several years afterward that I visited the field of 
 Waterloo. The ploughshare had been busy with its oblivious 
 labors, and the frequent harvest had nearly obliterated the 
 vestiges of war. Still the blackened ruins of Hoguemont stood, 
 a monumental pile, to mark the violence of this vehement 
 struggle. Its broken walls, pierced by bullets, and shattered 
 by explosions, showed the deadly strife that had taken place 
 within; when G-aul and Briton, hemmed in between narrow 
 walls, hand to hand and foot to foot, fought from garden to 
 court-yard, from court-yard to chamber, with intense and con- 
 centrated rivalship. Oolumns of smoke towered from this 
 vortex of battle as from, a volcano: "it was," said my guide, 
 "hke a little hell upon earth." Not far off, two or three broad 
 spots of rank, unwholesome green still marked the places 
 where these rival warriors, after their fierce and fitful struggle, 
 slept quietly together in the lap of their common mother earth. 
 Over aU the rest of the field peace had resumed its sway. The 
 thoughtless whistle of the peasant floated on the air, instead of 
 the trumpet's clangor ; the team slowly labored up the hill-side, 
 once shaken by the hoofs of rushmg squadrons ; and wild fields 
 of corn waved peacefully over the soldiers' graves, as summer 
 seas dimple over the place where many a tall ship lies buried. 
 
SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825. 97 
 
 To the foregoing desultory notes on the French military 
 character, let mo apiicnd a few traits which I picked up ver- 
 bally in one of the French provinces. They may have already 
 appeared in print, but I have never met with them. 
 
 At the breaMng out of the revolution, when so many of the 
 old families emigrated, a descendant of the great Turenne, by 
 the name of De LatoTir D'Auvergne, refused to accompany his 
 relations, and entered into the EepubUcan army. He served 
 in all the campaigns of the revolution, distinguished himself 
 by his valor, his accomphshments, and his generous spirit, and 
 might have risen to fortune and to the highest honors. He 
 refused, however, all rank in the army, above that of captain, 
 and would receive no recompense for his achievements but a 
 sword of honor. Napoleon, in testimony of his merits, gave 
 him the title of Premier Grenadier de France (First Grenadier 
 of France), which was the only title he would ever bear. He 
 was killed in Germany, in 1809 or '10. To honor his memory, 
 his place was always retained in his regiment, as if he stUl oc- 
 cupied it; and whenever the regiment was mustered, and the 
 name of De Latour D'Auvergne was called out, the reply was, 
 "Dead on the field of honor !" 
 
 PABIS AT THE RESTORATION. 
 
 Paris presented a singular aspect just after the downfall of 
 Napoleon, and the restoration of the Bourbons. It was fiUed 
 with a restless, roaming population; a dark, sallow race, with 
 fierce moustaches, black cravats, and feverish, menacing 
 looks; men suddenly thrown out of employ by the return of 
 peace'; oflacers cut short in their career, and cast loose with 
 scanty means, many of them in utter indigence, upon the 
 world; the broken elements of armies. They haunted the 
 places' of public resort, Kke restless, unhappy spirits, taking 
 no pleasure; hanging about, like lowering clouds that Imger 
 aftera storm, and giving a smgular cir of gloom to this other- 
 wise gay metropolis. ^, , ■, 
 
 The vaunted courtesy of the old school, the smooth urbamty 
 that prevailed m former days of settled government and long- 
 estabhshed anst«cracy, had disappeared amid the savage re- 
 publicamsm of the revolution and the military furor of the 
 empire- recent reverses had stung the national vanity to the 
 quick- and English travellers, who crowded to Paris on the 
 return of peace, expecting to meet with a gay, good-humored, 
 
98 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 complaisant populace, sucli as existed in the time of the " Sen. 
 timental Journey," were surprised at finding them irritable 
 and fractious, quick at fancying affronts, and not unapt to 
 offer insults. They accordingly inveighed with heat and bit- 
 terness at the rudeness they experienced in the French 
 metropohs ; yet what better had they to expect? Had Charles 
 II. been reinstated in his Idngdom by the valor of French 
 troops; had he been wheeled triumphantly to London over 
 the trampled bodies and trampled standards of England's 
 bravest sons; had a French general dictated to the English 
 capital, and a French army been quartered in Hyde-Park; had 
 Paris poured forth its motley population, and the wealthy 
 bourgeoisie of every French trading town swarmed to London; 
 crowding its squares; fiUing its streets with their equipages; 
 thronging its fashionable hotels, and places of amusements; 
 elbowing its impoverished nobihty out of their palaces and 
 opera-boxes, and looking down on the humiliated inhabitants 
 as a conquered people ; in such a reverse of the case, what degree 
 of courtesy would the populace of London have been apt to 
 exercise toward their visitors? * 
 
 On the contrary, I have always admired the degree of mag- 
 nanimity exhibited by the French on the oscupation of their 
 capital by the Enghsh. When we consider the miMtaiy ambi- 
 tion of this nation, its love of glory; the splendid height to 
 which its renown in arms had recently been carried, and with 
 these, the tremendous reverses it had just undergone; its 
 armies shattered, annihilated ; its capital captured, garrisoned, 
 and overrun, and that too by its ancient rival, the English, 
 toward whom it had cherished for centuries a jealous and 
 almost religious hostility ; could we have wondered if the tiger 
 spirit of this fiery people had broken out in bloody feuds and 
 deadly quarrels; and that they had sought to rid themselves 
 in any way of their invaders? But it is cowardly nations only, 
 those who dare not wield the sword, that revenge themselves 
 with the lurking dagger. There were no assassinations in 
 Paris. The French had fought valiantly, desperately, in the 
 field ; but, when valor was no longer of avail, they submitted 
 hke gallant men to a fate they could not withstand. Some in- 
 stances of insult from the populace were experienced by theik? 
 
 * The above remarks were suggested by a conversation with the late Mr. Can- 
 ning, whom the author met in Paris, and who expressed himself in the most liberal 
 way concerning the magnanimity of the French on the occupation of their capital 
 by strangers. 
 
t^KKTCUES IN PAlilS IN ]825. 99 
 
 BlQglish visitors; some personal rencontres, which led to duels 
 did take place ; but these smacked of open and honorable hos- 
 tility. No instances of lurking and perfidious revenge oc- 
 curred, and the British soldier patrolled the streets of Paris 
 safe from treacherous assault. 
 
 If the English met with harshness and repidse in social inter- 
 course, it was in some degree a proof that the people are more 
 sincere than has been represented. The emigrants who had 
 just returned, were not yet reinstated. Society was constituted 
 of those who had flourished undep the late regime; the newly 
 ennobled, the recently enriched, who felt their prosperity and 
 theii- consequence endangered by this change of things. The 
 broken-down officer, who saw his glory tarnished, his fortime 
 ruined, his occupation gone, could not be expected to look with 
 complacency upon the authors of his downfall. The English 
 visitor, flushed with health, and wealth, and victory, could 
 little enter into the feelings of the bhghted warrior, scarred 
 with a hundred battles, an exile from the camp, broken in con- 
 stitution by the wars, impoverished by the peace, and cast 
 back, a needy stranger in the splendid but captured metropolis 
 of his country. 
 
 " Oh ! who can tell what heroes feel, 
 When all but life and honor's lost I" 
 
 And here let me notice the conduct of the French soldiery 
 on the dismemberment of the army of the Loire, when two 
 hundred thousand men were suddenly thrown out of employ ; 
 men who had been brought up to the camp, and scarce knew 
 any other home. Few in civil, peacefiil life, are aware of the 
 severe trial to the feelings that takes place on the dissolution 
 of a regiment. There is a fraternity in arms. The community 
 of dangers, hardships, enjoyments ; the participation in battles 
 and victories ; the companionship in adventures, at a time of 
 life when men's feelings are most fresh, susceptible, and ardent, 
 all these bind the members of a regiment strongly together. 
 To them the regiment is friends, family, home. They identify 
 themselves with its fortunes, its glories, its disgraces. Imagine 
 this romantic tie suddenly dissolved; the regiment broken up; 
 the occupation of its members gone ; their military pride mor- 
 tified ; the career of glory closed behind them ; that of obscurity, 
 dependence, want, neglect, perhaps beggary, before them. 
 Such was the case with the soldiers of the Army of the Loire. 
 They were sent ofiE in squads, with officers, to the principal 
 
100 THE GRA TON PAPERS. 
 
 towns where they were to be disarmed and discharged. In 
 this way they passed through the country with arms in their 
 hands, often exposed to shghts and scoffs, to hunger and vari- 
 oiis hardships and privations; but they conducted themselves 
 magnanimously, without any of those outbreaks of violence 
 and wrong that so often attend the dismemberment of armies. 
 
 The few years that have elapsed since the time above alluded 
 to, have already had their effect. The proud and angry spirits 
 which then roamed about Paris unemployed have cooled down 
 and found occupation. The national character begins to re- 
 cover its old channels, though worn deeper by recent torrents. 
 The natural urbanity of the French begins to find its way, like 
 oU, to the surface, though there stiU remains a -degree of rough- 
 ness and bluntness of manner, partly real, and partly affected, 
 by such as imagine it to indicate force and frankness. The 
 events of the last thirty years have rendered the French a 
 more reflecting people. They have acquired greater indepen- 
 dence of mind and strength of judgment, together with a por- 
 tion of that prudence which results from experiencing "the 
 dangerous consequences of excesses. However that period 
 may have been stained by crimes, and filled with extrava- 
 gances, the French have certainly come out of it a greater 
 nation than before. One of their own philosophers observes 
 that in one or two generations the nation wiU probably com- 
 bine the ease and elegance of the old character with force and 
 solidity. They were light, he says, before the revolution; then 
 wild and savage; they have become more thoughtful and re- 
 flective. It is only old Frenchmen, now-a-days, that are gay 
 and trivial; the young are very serious personages. 
 
 P.S. In the course of a morning's walk, about the time the 
 above remarks were written, I observed the Duke of WeUington, 
 who was on a brief visit to Paris, pe was alone, simply attired 
 in a blue frock ; with an umbrella under his arm, and his hat 
 drawn over his eyes, and sauntering across the Place Ven- 
 dome, close by the Column of Napoleon. He gave a glance up 
 at the column as he passed, and continued his loitering way up 
 the Eue de la Paix ; stopping occasionally to gaze iu at the 
 shop-windows; elbowed now and then by other gazers, who 
 little suspected that the quiet, lounging individual they were 
 jostling so unceremoniously, waa the conqueror who had twice 
 
AMERICAN RESEAHGHES IN ITALY. IQl 
 
 entered the capital victoriously ; had controlled the destinies 
 of the nation, and ecMpsed the glory of the military idol, at the 
 base of whose column he was thus negligently sauntering. 
 
 Some years afterward I was at an evening's entertainment 
 given by the Duke at Apsley House, to WUMam IV. The Duke 
 had manifested his admiration of his great adversary, by 
 having portraits of him in different parts of the house. At 
 the bottom of the grand staircase, stood the colossal statue of 
 the Emperor, by Canova. It was of marble, in the antique 
 style, with one arm partly extended, holding a figure of vie 
 tory. Over this arm the ladies, in tripping up stairs to the 
 ball, had thrown their shawls. It was a singular ofiice for the 
 statue of Napoleon to perform in the mansion of the Duke of 
 Wellington! 
 
 " Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay," etc., etc 
 
 AMERICAN RESEARCHES IN ITALY. 
 
 LIFE OF TASSO: EBCOVEEY OF A LOST POETRAIT OF DANTE. 
 
 To the Editor of the Knickerbocker: 
 
 SiE: Permit me through the pages of your magazine to call 
 the attention of the public to the learned and elegant re- 
 searches in Europe of one of our coimtrymen, Mr. R. H. 
 Wilde, of Georgia, formerly a member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. After leaving Congress, Mr. Wilde a few years 
 since spent about eighteen months in travelling through differ- 
 ent parts of Europe, until he became stationary for a time in 
 Tuscany. Here he occupied himself with researches concern- 
 ing the private life of Tasso, whose mysterious and romantic 
 love for the Princess Leonora, his madness and imprisonment, 
 had recently become the theme of a Uterary controversy, not 
 yet ended; curious in itself, and rendered stUl more curious by 
 some alleged manuscripts of the poet's, brought forward by 
 Count Alberti. Mr. WUde entered into the investigation with 
 the enthusiasm of a poet, and the patience and accuracy of a 
 case-hunter; and has produced a work now in the press, in 
 which the " vexed questions" concerning Tasso are most^ably 
 discussed, and lights thrown upon them by his letters, and by 
 various of his sonnets, which last are rendered into English 
 
J 02 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 with rare felicity. While Mr. Wilde was occupied upon this 
 work, he became acquainted with Signer Carlo Livorati, an 
 artist of considerable merit, and especially well versed in the 
 antiquities of Florence. This gentleman mentioned inciden- 
 tally one day, in the com-se of conversation, that there once 
 and probably stiU existed in the Bargello, anciently both the 
 prison and the palace of the repubhc, an authentic portrait of 
 Dante. It was behoved to be in fresco, on a wall which after- 
 ward, by some strange neglect or inadvertency, had been cov- 
 ered with whitewash. Signer Liverati mentioned the circim).- 
 stance merely to deplore the loss of so precious a portrait, ai. . 
 to regret the almost utter hopelessness of its recovery. 
 
 As Mr. Wilde had not as yet imbibed that enthusiastic 
 admiration for Dante which possesses all ItaHans. by whom 
 the poet is almost worshipped, this conversation made but a 
 sMght impression on him at the time. Subsequently, how- 
 ever, his researches concerning Tasso being ended, he began 
 to amuse his leisure hours with attempts to translate some 
 specimens of Italian lyric poetry, and to compose very short 
 biographical sketches of the authors. In these specimens, 
 which as yet exist only in roanuscript, he has shown the same 
 critical knowledge of the Italian language, and admirable 
 coromand of the Enghsh, that characterize his translations 
 of Tasso. He had not advanced far in these 'exercises, when 
 the obscure and contradictory accounts of many incidents in 
 the"' life of Dante caused him much embarrassment, and 
 sorely piqued his curiosity. About the same time he I'eceived, 
 through the courtesy of Don Neri dei Principi Corsini, what 
 he had long most fervently desired, a permission from the 
 Grand Duke to pursue his investigations in the secret archives 
 of Florence, with power to obtain copies therefrom. This was 
 a rich and almost unwrought mine of Hterary research ; for to 
 Italians themselves, as well as to foreigners, their archives for 
 the most part have been long inaccessible. For two years 
 Mr. Wilde devoted himself with indefatigable ardor to ex- 
 plore the records of the republic during the time of Dante. 
 These being written in barbarous Laiiin and semi-Gothic 
 characters, on parchment more or less discolored and muti' 
 lated, with ink sometimes faded, were rendered stUl more 
 illegible by the arbitrary abbreviations of the notaries. They 
 require, in fact, an especial study; few even of the oflacera 
 employed in the ^^ Archivio delle Riformagione" can read them 
 currently and correctly. 
 
AMEEICAN RESEAncUES IN ITALY. IQS 
 
 Mr. Wilde however persevered in his laborious task with 
 a patience severely tried, but invincible. Being without an 
 index, each file, each book, required to be examined page by 
 page, to ascertain whether any particular of the immortal 
 poet's political hfe had escaped the untiring industry of his 
 countrymen. This toil was not whoUy fruitless, and several 
 interesting facts obscurely known, and others utterly iin 
 known by the Italians themselves, are drawn forth by Mr. 
 Y/ilde from the oblivion of these archives. 
 
 WhUe thus engaged, the circumstance of the lost portrait 
 of Dante was again brought to Mr. Wilde's mind, but now 
 excited intense interest. In perusing the notes of the late 
 learned Canonico Moreri on Filelfo's hfe of Dante, he found 
 it stated that a portrait of the poet by Giotto was formerly 
 to be seen in the BargeUo. Ho learned also that Signer 
 Scotti, who has charge of tho oiiginal drawings of the old 
 mastei-s in tho imperial and royal gallery, had made several 
 years previously an ineffectual attempt to set on foot a project 
 for the recovery of the lost treasure. Here was a new vein 
 of inquiry, which liv. Wilde followed up with his usual energy 
 and sagacity. He soon satisfied himseh:', by reference to 
 Vasari, and to the still more ancient and decisive authority 
 of Mhppo VUlari, who Hved shortly after the poet, that Giotto, 
 the friend and contemporary of Dante, did undoubtedly paint 
 his likeness in the place indicated. Giotto died in 133G, but 
 as Dante was banished, and was even sentenced to be burned, 
 in 1302, it was obvious the work must have been ejiiscuted 
 before that time ; since the portrait of one outlawed and capi- 
 tally convicted as an enemy to the commonwealth would 
 never have been ordered or tolerated in the chapel of tho 
 royal palace. It was clear, then, that tho portrait must have 
 been painted between 1290 and 1302. 
 
 Mr. Wilde now revolved in his own mind the possibility 
 that this precious rehc might remain undestroyed under its 
 coat of whitewash, and might yet be restored to the world. 
 For a moment he felt an impulse to im.dertake the enterprise; 
 but feared that, in a foreigner from a new world, any part of 
 which is unrepresented at the Tuscan court, it might appear 
 like an intrusion. He soon however found a zealous coadjutor. 
 This was one Giovanni Aubrey Bezzi, a Piedmontese exUc, 
 who had long been a resident in England, and was familiar 
 with its language and Hterature. He was now on a visit to 
 ilorence, which liberal and hospitable city is alv/ays open to 
 
104 THE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 men of merit who for political reasons have heen excluded 
 from other parts of Italy. Signer Bezzi partook deeply of the 
 enthusiasm of his countrymen for the memory of Dante, and 
 sympathized with Mr. WUde in his eagerness to retrieve if pos- 
 sible the lost portrait. They had several consultations as to 
 the means to be adopted to effect their pui-pose, without in- 
 curring the charge of undue offlciousness. To lessen any ob- 
 jections that might occur, they resolved to asl? for nothing but 
 permission to search for the fresco painting at their own ex- 
 pense ; and should any remains of it be found, then to propose 
 to the nobility and gentry of Florence an association for the 
 purpose of completing the undertaking, and effectually recover- 
 ing the lost portrait. 
 
 For the same reason the formal memorial addressed to the 
 Grand Duke was drawn up in the name of Florentines ; among 
 whom were the celebrated Bartolini, now President of the 
 School of Sculpture in the Imperial and Eoyal Academy, Sig- 
 ner Paolo Ferroni, of the noble family of that name, who has 
 exhibited considerable talent for painting, and Signer Gas- 
 parini, also an artist. This petition was lu-ged and supported 
 with indefatigable zeal by Signer Bezzi; and being warmly 
 countenanced by Count NerH and ether functionaries, met 
 with raore prompt success than had been anticipated. Signor 
 Marini, a skilful artist, who had succeeded in similar operas 
 tions, was now employed to remove the whitewash by a pro- 
 cess of his own, by which any fresco painting that might exist 
 beneath would be protected from injury. He set to work 
 patiently and cautiously. In a short time he met with evi- 
 dence of the existence of the fresco. From under the coat 
 of whitewash the head of an angel gradually made its appear- 
 ance, and was pronounced to be by the pencil of Giotto. 
 
 The enterprise was now prosecuted with increased ardor. 
 Several months were expended on the task, and three sides 
 of the chapel waU were uncovered ; they were aU painted in 
 fresco by Giotto, with the history of the Magdalen, exhibiting 
 her conversion, her penance, and her beatification. The fig- 
 ures, however, were aU those of saints and angels; no histori- 
 cal portraits had yet been discovered, and doubts began to 
 be entertained whether there were any. Stiil the recovery 
 of an indisputable work of Giotto's was considered an ample 
 reward for any toil; and the Ministers of the Grand Diike, 
 acting under his directions, assumed on his behalf the past 
 charges and future management of the enterprise. 
 
AMEBICAN RESMAIiCHES IN ITAL-T. 105 
 
 At length, on the imcovering of the fourth wall, the under- 
 taJdng was crowned with complete success. A number of 
 historical figures were brought to light, and among them the 
 undoubted Hkeness of Dante. He was represented in fuU 
 length, in the garb of the time, with a book under his arm, 
 designed most probably to represent the "Vita Nuova," for 
 the " Comedia" was not yet composed, and to all appearance 
 from thirty to thirty-five years of age. The face was in pi-ofile, 
 and in excellent preservation, exceptiug that at some former 
 period a naii had unfortunately been driven into the eye. The 
 outhne of the eyeM was perfect, so that the injury could 
 easily be remedied. The countenance was extremely hand- 
 some, yet bore a strong resemblance to the portraits of the 
 poet taken later in Ufe. 
 
 It is not easy to appreciate the delight of Mr. WUde and his 
 coadjutors at this triumphant result of their researches; nor 
 the sensation produced, not merely in Florence but throughout 
 Italy, by this discovery of a veritable portrait of Dante, in the 
 prime of his days. It was some such sensation as would be 
 produced in England by the sudden discovery of a perfectly 
 well authenticated likeness of Shakespeare ; with a difiEerence 
 in intensity proportioned to the superior sensitiveness of the 
 Italians. 
 
 The recovery of this portrait of the "divine poet" has occa- 
 sioned fresh inquiry into the origin of the masks said to have 
 been made from a cast of his face taken after death. One of 
 these masks, in the possession of the Marquess of Torrigiani, 
 has been pronounced as certainly the original. Several artists 
 of high talent have concurred in this opinion; among these 
 maybe named Jesi, the first engraver in Florence; Sejrmour 
 Kirkup, Esq., a painter and antiquary; and our own country- 
 man Powers, whose genius, by the way, is very highly appre- 
 iciated by the Italians. 
 
 We may expect from the accomplished pen of Carlo Torrigi- 
 ani, son of the Marquess, and who is advantageously known in 
 this country, from having travelled here, an account of this 
 curious and valuable relic, which has been upward of a century 
 in the possession of his family. z 
 
 Should Mr. WUde finish his biographical work concerning 
 Dante, which promises to be a proud achievem jnt in American 
 literature, he intends, I understand, to apply for permission to 
 have both likenesses copied, and should circumstances warrant 
 the expense, to have them engraved by eminent artists. We 
 
106 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 shall then have the features of Dante while in the prime of life 
 as well as at the moment of his death. G. C. 
 
 THE TAKING OF THE VEIL. 
 
 One of the most remarkable personages in Parisian society 
 during the last century was Ren^e Charlotte Victoire de Frou- 
 lay De Tesse, Marchioness De Crequi. She sprang from the 
 highest and proudest of the old Frencli nobility, and ever 
 maintained the most exalted notions of the piu-ity and anti- 
 quity of blood, looking upon all families that could not date 
 back further than three or four hundred years as mere up- 
 starts. When a beautiful girl, fourteen years of ago, she was 
 presented to Louis XIV., at Versailles, and the ancient mon- 
 arch kissed her hand with great gallantry; after an interval of 
 about eighty-five years, when nearly a hundred years old, the 
 same testimonial of respect was paid her at the Tuileries by 
 Bonaparte, then First Consul, who promised her the restitution 
 of the confiscated forests formerly belonging to her family. 
 She was one of the most celebrated women of her time for in- 
 tellectual graee and superiority, and had the courage to remain 
 at Paris and brave aU the horrors of the revolution, which laid 
 waste the aristocratical world around her. 
 
 The memoirs she has left behind abound with curious anec- 
 dotes and vivid pictures of Parisian life during the latter days 
 of Louis XIV., the regency of the Duke of Orleans, and the 
 residue of the last century; and are highly illustrative of the 
 pride, splendor, and hcentiousness of the French nobility on 
 the very eve of their tremendous downfall. 
 
 I shall draw forth a few scenes from her memoirs, taken 
 almost at random, and which, though given as actual and well- 
 known circumstances, have quite the air of romance. 
 
 All the great world of Paris were invited to be present at a 
 grand ceremonial, to take place in the church of the Abbey 
 Poyal of Panthemont. Henrietta de Lenoncour, a young girl 
 of a noble family, of great beauty, and heiress to immense 
 ntates, was to take the black veil. Invitations had been issued 
 in grand form, by her aunt and guardian, the Countess Brigitte 
 
THE TAKING OF THE VEIL. 107 
 
 de Eupelmonde, canoness of Mauberge. The circumstance 
 caused great talk and wonder in the fashionable circles of 
 Paris; everybody was at a loss to imagine why a young gii'l, 
 beautiful and rich, in the very springtime of her charms, 
 should renounce a world which she was so eminently qualified 
 to embellish and enjoy. 
 
 A lady of high rank, who visited the beautiful novice at the 
 grate of her convent-parlor, got a clue to the mystery. She 
 found her in great agitation ; for a time she evidently repressed 
 her feelings, but they at length broke forth in passionate ex- 
 clamations. "Heaven grant me grace," said she, "some day 
 or other to pardon my cousin Gondrecourt the sorrows he has 
 caused me !" 
 
 "What do you mean?— what sorrows, my child?" inquired 
 her visitor. "What has your cousin done to afEect you?" 
 
 "He is married!" cried she in accents of despair, but endea- 
 voring to repress her sobs. 
 
 "Married ! I have heard nothing of the kind, my dear. Are 
 you perfectly sure of it?" 
 
 " Alas ! nothing is more certain ; my aunt de Rupehnonde id- 
 formed me of it." 
 
 Tlie lady retired, ivdl of surprise and commiseration. She 
 related the scene in a circle of the highest nobility, in the 
 saloon of the Marshal Prince of Beauvau, where the unac- 
 countable self - sacrifice of the beautiful novice was under 
 discussion. 
 
 "Alas!" said she, "the poor girl is crossed in love; she is 
 about to renounce the world in despair, at the marriage of her 
 cousin De Gondrecourt." 
 
 "What!" cried a gentleman present, "the Viscount de 
 Gondrecourt married! Never was there a greater falsehood. 
 And ' her aunt told her so ! ' Oh ! I understand the plot. The 
 countess is passionately fond of Gondrecourt, and jealous of 
 her beautiful niece; but her schemes are vain; the Viscount 
 holds her in perfect detestation." 
 
 There was a mingled expression of ridicule, disgust, and 
 indignation at the thought of such a rivalry. The Countess 
 Eupebnondo was old enough to be the grandmother of the 
 Viscount. She was a woman of violent passions, and imperi- 
 ous temper; robust in person, with a masculine voice, a dusky 
 complexion, green eyes, and powerful eyebrows. 
 
 "It is impossible," cried one of the company, " that a woman 
 of the coimcess' age and appearance can be guilty of such 
 
108 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 folly. No, no ; you mistake the aim of this detestable woman. 
 She is managing to get possession of the estate of her lovely 
 niece. " 
 
 This was admitted to be the most probable; and all concm-red 
 in beheving the countess to be at the bottom of the intended 
 sacrifice; for although a canoness, a dignitary of a religious 
 order, she was pronounced little better than a devil incarnate. 
 
 The Princess de Beauvau, a woman of generous spirit and 
 intrepid zeal, suddenly rose from the chair in which she had 
 been reclkung. " My prince," said she, addressing her hus- 
 band, "if you approve of it, I will go immediately and have a 
 conversation on this subject with the archbishop. There is not 
 a moment to spare. It is now past midnight ; the ceremony is 
 to take place in the morning. A few hours and the irrevocable 
 vows will be pronounced." 
 
 The prince inclined his head in respectful assent. The 
 princess set about her generous enterprise with a woman's 
 promptness. Within a short time her carriage was at the iron 
 gate of the archiepiscopal palace, and her servants rang for 
 admission. Two Switzers, who had charge of the gate, were 
 fast asleep in the porter's lodge, for it was half -past two in the 
 morning. It was some time before they could be awakened, 
 and longer before they could be made to come forth. 
 
 " The Princess de Beauvau is at the gate !" 
 
 Such a personage was not to be received in deshabille. Her 
 dignity and the dignity of the archbishop demanded that the 
 gate should be served in fuE costume. For half an hom-, there- 
 fore, had the princess to wait, in feverish impatience, until the 
 two dignitaries of the porter's lodge arrayed themselves; and 
 three o'clock sounded from the tower of Notre Dame before 
 they came forth. They were in grand livery, of a buff color, 
 with amaranth galloons, plaited with silver, and fringed sword- 
 belts reaching to their knees, in which were suspended long 
 rapiers. They had small three-cornered hats, surmounted 
 with plumes; and each bore in his hand a halbert. Thus 
 equipped at all points, they planted themselves before the door 
 of the carriage; struck the ends of their halberts on the ground 
 with emphasis; and stood waiting with ofHcial importance 
 but profound respect, to know the pleasure of the princess. 
 
 She demanded to speak with the archbishop. A most rever- 
 ential bow and shrug accompanied the reply, that " His Gran- 
 deur was not at horno. " 
 
 Not at home ! Where was ho to be found? Another bow 
 
THE TAKING OF THE VEIL. 109 
 
 and shrug: "His Grandevir either was, or ought to be, in 
 retirement in the seminary of St. Magloire ; unless he had gone 
 to pass the Fete of St. Bruno with the reverend Carthusian 
 Fathers of the Eue d'Enfer ; or perhaps he might have gone to 
 repose himseK in his castle of Confleins-sur-Seine. Though, on 
 further thought, it was not unlikely he might have gone to 
 sleep at St. Cyr, where the Bishop of Chartres never faHod 
 to invite him for the anniversary soiree of Madame de Main- 
 tenon. 
 
 The princess was in despair at this multiplicity of cross- 
 roads pointed out for the chase ; the brief interval of time was 
 rapidly elapsing; day already began to dawn; she saw there 
 was no hope of finding the archbishop before the moment of 
 his entrance into the church for the morning's ceremonjr ; so 
 s^e returned kome quite distressed. 
 
 At seven o'clock in the morning the princess was in the 
 parlor of the monastery of De Panthemont, and sent in an 
 urgent request for a moment's conversation with the Lady 
 Abbess. The reply brought was, that the Abbess could not 
 come to the parlor, being obliged to attend to the choir, at the 
 canonical hours. The princess entreated permission to enter 
 the convent, to reveal to the Lady Abbess in two words some- 
 thing of the -greatest importance. The Abbess sent word in 
 reply, that the -thing was impossible, untU she had obtained 
 permission from the Archbishop of Paris. The princess 
 retired once more to her carriage, and now, as a forlorn hope, 
 took her station at the door of the chiu-ch, to watch for the 
 arrival of the prelate. 
 
 After a while the splendid company invited to this great 
 ceremony began to arrive. The beauty, rank, and wealth of 
 the novice had excited great attention ; and, as everybody was 
 expected to be present on the occasion, everybody pressed to 
 secure a place. The street reverberated with the continual roll 
 of gilded carriages and chariots ; coaches of princes and dukes, 
 designated by imperials of crimson velvet, and magnificent 
 equipages of six horses, decked out with nodding plumes and 
 sumptuous harnessing. At length the equipages ceased to 
 arrive; empty vehicles filled the street; and, with a noisy and 
 parti-colored crowd of lacqueys in rich liveries, obstructed aU 
 the entrances to De Panthemont. 
 
 Eleven o'clock had struck ; the last auditor had entered the 
 church; the deep tones of the organ began to swell through the 
 sacred pile, yet still the archbishop came not! The heart of 
 
110 THE GBATON PAPERS. 
 
 the princess beat quicker and quicker with vague apprehension ; 
 when a valet, dressed in cloth of silver, triEcimed with crimson 
 velvet, approached her carriage precipitately. ''Madame," 
 said he, "the archbishop is in the church; he entered by the 
 portal of the cloister; he is already in the sanctuary; the cere- 
 mony is about to commence !" 
 
 What was to be done? To speak with the archbishop was 
 now impossible, and yet on the revelation she was to make 
 to him depended the fate of the lovely novice. The princess 
 drew forth her tablets of enamelled gold, wrote a few lines 
 therein with a pencil, and ordered her lacquey to make way for 
 her through the crowd, and conduct her with all speed to the 
 sacristy. 
 
 The description given of the church and the assemblage on 
 this occasion presents an idea of the aristocratical state of the 
 times, and of the high interest awakened by the affecting 
 sacrifice about to take place. The chm-ch was hung with 
 superb tapestry, above which extended a band of white damask, 
 fringed with gold, and covered with armorial escutcheons. 
 A large pennon, emblazoned with the arms and alliances of the 
 high-born damsel, was suspended, according to custom, in 
 place of the lamp of the sanctuary. The lustres, girandoles, 
 and candelabras of the king had been furnished in profusion, 
 to decorate the sacred edifice, and the pavements were all 
 covered with rich carpets. 
 
 The sanctuary presented a reverend and august assemblage 
 of bishops, canons, and monks of various orders, Benedic- 
 tines, Bemardines, Eaccollets, Capuchins, and others, all in 
 their appropriate robes and dresses. In the midst presided the 
 Archbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beaumont ; surrounded by 
 his four arch priests and his vicars-general. He was seated with 
 his back against the altar. When his eyes were cast down, his 
 countenance, pale and severe, is represented as having been 
 somewhat sepulchral and death-Uke ; but the moment he raised 
 his large, dark, sparkUng eyes, the whole became animated; 
 beaming with ardor, and expressive of energy, penetration, and 
 firmness. 
 
 The audience that crowded the church was no less illustrious. 
 Excepting the royal family, all that was elevated in rank and 
 title was there ; never had a ceremonial of the kind attracted 
 an equal concourse of the high aristocracy of Paris. 
 
 At length the grated gates of the choir creaked on their 
 hinges, and Madame de Eichehou, the high and noble Abbess 
 
THE TAKING OF THE VEIL. \\\ 
 
 of De Panthemont, advanced to resign the novice into the 
 hands of her aunt, the Countess Canoness de Eupelmonde. 
 Every eye was turned with intense curiosity to gain a sight of 
 the beautiful victim. She was sumptuously dressed, but her 
 paleness and languor accorded but Mttle with her brUHant attire. 
 The Canoness De Eupelmonde conducted her niece to her pray- 
 ing-desk, where, as soon as the poor girl knelt down, she sank 
 as i£ exhausted. Just then a sort of murmur was heard at the 
 lower end of the church, where the servants in Uvery were 
 gathered. A young man was borne forth, struggling in con- 
 vulsions. He was in. the uniform of an oflficer of the guards of 
 King Stanislaus, Duke of Lorraine. A whisper circulated that 
 it was the young Viscount de Gondrecourt, and that he was a 
 lover of the novice. Almost aU the young nobles present 
 hurried forth to proffer him sympathy and assistance. 
 
 The Archbishop of Paris remained aU this time seated before 
 the altar ; his eyes cast down, his pallid countenance giving no 
 signs of interest or participation in the scene around him. It 
 was noticed that in one of his hands, which was covered with 
 a violet glove, he grasped firmly a pair of tablets, of enamelled 
 gold. 
 
 The Canoness De Eupelmonde conducted her niece to the 
 prelate, to make her profession of self-devotion, and to utter 
 the irrevocable vow. As the lovely novice knelt at his feet, 
 the archbishop fixed on her his dark, beaming eyes, with a kind 
 but earnest expression. "Sister!" said he, in the softest and 
 moet benevolent tone of voice, "what is your age?" 
 
 "Nineteen years, Monsigneur," eagerly interposed the Coun- 
 tess de Eupelmonde. 
 
 " You will reply to me by and bye, Madame," said the arch- 
 bishop, dryly. He then repeated his question to the novice, 
 who replied in a faltering voice, "Seventeen years." 
 
 "In what diocese did you take the white veil?" 
 
 ' ' In the diocese of Toul. " 
 
 "How!" exclaimed the archbishop, vehemently. "In the 
 diocese of Toul? The chair of Toul is vacant! The Bishop of 
 Toul died fifteen months since; and those who officiate in the 
 chapter are not authorized to receive novices. Your noviciate, 
 Mademoiselle, is nuU and void, and we cannot receive your 
 profession." 
 
 The archbishop rose from his chair, resumed his mitre, and 
 took the crozier from the hands of an attendant. 
 
 ' ' My dear brethren, " said he, addressing the assembly, ' ' there 
 
112 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 is no necessity for our examining and interrogating Mademoi- 
 selle de Lenoncour on the sincerity of her religious vocation. 
 There is a canonical impediment to her professing for the pres- 
 ent; and, as to the future, we reserve to ourselves the con- 
 sideration of the matter; interdicting to all other ecclesiastical 
 persons the power of accepting her vows, under penalty of in- 
 terdiction, of suspension, and of nulHfication; all which is in 
 virtue of our metropolitan rights, contained in the terms of the 
 buU cum proximis:^'' "Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Bo- 
 miniP' pursued he, chanting in a grave and solemn voice, and 
 turning toward the altar to give the benediction of the holy 
 sacrament. 
 
 The"nohle auditory had that habitude of reserve, that empire, 
 or rather tyranny, over all outward manifestations of internal 
 emotions, which belongs to high aristocratical breeding. The 
 declaration of the archbishop, therefore, was received as one 
 of the most natural and ordinary things in the world, and all 
 knelt down and received the pontifical benediction with perfect 
 decorum. As soon, however, as they were released from the 
 self-restraint imposed by etiquette, they amply indemnified 
 themselves; and nothing was talked of for a month, in the 
 fashionable saloons of Earis, but the loves of the handsome 
 Viscount and the charming Henrietta; the wickedness of the 
 canoness ; the active benevolence and admirable address of the 
 Princess de Beauvaai ; and the great wisdom of the archbishop, 
 who was particidarly extolled for his dehcacy in defeating this 
 manoeuvre without any scandal to the aristocracy, or public 
 stigma on the name of De Eupehnonde, and without any de- 
 parture from pastoral gentleness, by adroitly seizing upon an 
 informality, and turning it to beneficial account, with as much 
 authority as charitable circiunspection. 
 
 As to the Canoness de Eupelmonde, she was defeated at all 
 points in her wicked plans ag£iinst her beautiful niece. In 
 consequence of the caveat of the archishop, her superior 
 ecclesiastic, the Abbess de Panthemont, formally forbade Mar 
 demoiselle de Lenoncour to resume the white veil and the dress 
 of a noviciate, and instead of a novice's cell, established her in 
 a beautiful apartment as a boarder. The next morning the 
 Canoness de Eupelmonde called at the convent to take away 
 her niece ; but, to her confusion, the abbess produced a lettre- 
 de-cachet, which she had just received, and which forbade 
 Mademoiselle to leave the convent with any other person save 
 the Prince de Beauvau. 
 
THE TAKING OF THE VEIL. 113 
 
 Under the auspices and the vigilant attention of the prince, 
 the whole afiair was wound up in the most technical and cir- 
 cumstantial manner. The Countess de Eupelmonde, by a 
 decree of the Grand Council, was divested of the guardianship 
 of her niece. AU the arrears of revenues accumulated during 
 Mademoiselle de Lenoncour's minority were rigorously col- 
 lected, the accounts scrutinized and adjusted, and her nohle 
 fortune placed safely and entirely in her hands. 
 
 In a little while the noble personages who had been invited 
 to the ceremony of taking the veil received another invitation, 
 on the part of the Countess dowager de Gondrecourt, and the 
 Marshal Prince de Beauvau, to attend the marriage of Adrien 
 de Gondrecourt, Viscount of Jean-sur-MoseUe, and Henrietta 
 de Lenoncour, Countess de Hevouwal, etc., which duly took 
 place in the chapel of the aichiepiscopal palace at Paris. 
 
 So much for the beautiful Henrietta de Lenoncour. "We will 
 now draw forth a companion picture of a handsome young 
 cavalier, who figured in the gay world of Paris about the same 
 time, and concerning whom the ancient Marchioness writes 
 with the lingering feeling of youthful romance. 
 
 THE CHARMING LETORIMES. 
 
 "A GOOD face is a letter of recommendation," says an old 
 proverb ; and it was never more verified than in the case of 
 the Chevalier Letorieres. He was a young gentleman of good 
 family, but who, according to the Spanish phrase, had nothing 
 but Ms cloak and sword (capa y espada), that is to say, his 
 gentle blood and gallant bearing, to help him forward in the 
 world. Through the interest of an uncle, who was an abbe, he 
 received a gratuitous education at a fashionable college, but 
 finding the terms of study too long, and the vacations too 
 short, for his gay and indolent temper, he left college without 
 saying a word, and launched himself upon Paris, with a light 
 heart and stiU lighter pocket. Here he led a Mfe to his humor. 
 It is true he had to make scanty meals, and to lodge in a garret; 
 but what of that? He was his own master; free from all task 
 or restraint. When cold or hungry, he saUied forth, like 
 others of the chameleon order, and banqueted on pure air and 
 warm sunshine in the public walks and gardens ; drove off the 
 thoughts of a dinner by amusing hunself with the gay and gro- 
 
114 THE CliATON PAPERS. 
 
 tesque throngs of the metropolis ; and if one of the poorest, was 
 one of the merriest gentlemen upon town. Wherever he went 
 his good looks and frank, graceful demeanor, had an instant 
 and magical effect in securing favor. There was but one 
 word to express his fascinating powers — he was " charm- 
 ing." 
 
 Instances are given of the efEect of his winning qualities upon 
 minds of coarse, ordinary mould. He had once taken shelter 
 from a heavy shower under a gateway. A hackney coachman, 
 who was passmg by, pulled up, and asked him if he wished a 
 cast in his carriage. Letorieres declined, with a melancholy 
 and dubious shake of the head. The coachman regarded him 
 wistfully, repeated his solicitations, and wished to know what 
 place he was going to. "To the Palace of Justice, to walk in 
 the galleries; but I will wait here until the rain is over." 
 
 "And why so?" inquired the- coachman, pertinaciously. 
 
 " Because I've no money; do let me be quiet." 
 
 The coachman jumped down, and opening the door of his 
 carriage, "It shaU never be said," cried he, "that I left so 
 •harming a young gentleman to weary himself, and catch 
 cold, merely for the sake of twenty-four sous." 
 
 Arrived at the Palace of Justice, he stopped before the saloon 
 of a famous restaurateur, opened the door of the carriage, 
 and taking off his hat very respectfully, begged the youth to 
 accept of a Loiiis-d'or. "You will meet with some young gen- 
 tlemen within," said he, "with whom you may wish to take a 
 hand at cards. The number of my coach is 144. You can find 
 me out, and repay me whenever you please. " 
 
 The worthy Jehu was some years afterward made coachman 
 to the Princess Sophia, of France, through the recommenda- 
 tion of the handsome youth he had so generously obliged. 
 
 Another instance in point is given with respect to his tailor, to 
 whom he owed four hundred livres. The tailor had repeatedly 
 dunned him, but was always put off with the best grace in the 
 world. The wife of the tailor urged her husband to assume a 
 harsher tone. He repHed that he could not find it in his heart 
 to speak roughly to so charming a young gentleman. 
 
 "I've no patienoo with such want of spirit!" cried the wife: 
 "you have not the courage to show your teeth: but I'm going 
 out to get change for this note of a l^undred crowns ; before I 
 come home, I'll seek this ' charming ' youth myself, and see 
 whether he has the power to charm mo. I'll warrant he 
 won't be able to put me off with fine looks and fine speeches." 
 
THE TAKING OF THE VEIL. ng 
 
 With these and many more vamits, the good dame salKed 
 forth. When she returned home, however, she wore quite a 
 different aspect. 
 
 "Well," said her husband, "how much have you received 
 from the ' charming ' young man?" 
 
 " Let me alone," replied the wife; " I found Viim playing on 
 the guitar, and he looked so handsome, and was so amiahlo 
 and genteel, that I had not the heart to trouble him." 
 
 "And the change for the hundred-crown note?" said the 
 tailor. 
 
 The wife hesitated a moment: "Faith," cried slie, "you'll 
 have to add the amount to your next biU against him. The 
 poor young gentleman had such a melancholy air, that— I know 
 not how it was, but —I left the hundred crowns' on his mantel- 
 piece in spite of him !" 
 
 The captivating looks and manners of Letoriferes made hia 
 way with equal f acihty in the great world. His high connec- 
 tions entitled him to presentation at court, but some questions 
 arose about the sufficiency of his proofs of nobility ; whereupon 
 the king, who had seen him walking in the gardens of Ver- 
 sailles, and had been charmed with his appearance, put an end 
 to all demurs of etiquette by making him a viscount. 
 
 The same kind of fascination is said to have attended him 
 throughout his career. He succeeded in various difficult fam- 
 ily suits on questions of honors and privileges : he had merely 
 to appear in court to dispose the judges in his favor. He at 
 length became so popular, that on one occasion, when he 
 appeared at the theatre on recovering from a wound received 
 in a duel, the audience applauded him on his entrance. Noth- 
 ing, it is said, could have been in more perfect good taste and 
 high breeding than his conduct on this occasion. When, he 
 heard the applause, he rose in his box, stepped forward, and 
 surveyed both sides of the house, as if he could not behevo 
 that it was himself they were treating Uke a favorite actor, or 
 a prince of the blood. 
 
 His success with the fair sex may easily be presumed; but 
 he had too much honor and sensibiUty to render his inter- 
 course with them a series of cold gallantries and heartless tri- 
 umphs. In the course of his attendance upon court, where he 
 held a post of honor about the king, he fell deeply in love with 
 the beautiful Princess Julia, of Savoy Carignan. She was 
 young, tender, and simple-hearted, and returned his love with 
 equal, fervor Her fainy.T took the alam at this attachment; 
 
116 TJSE CRAYON PAPMRS. 
 
 and procured an order that she should inhabit the Abbey of 
 Montmartre, where she was treated with all befitting delicacy 
 and distinction, but not permitted to go beyond the convent 
 walls. The lovers found means to correspond. One of their 
 letters was intercepted, and it is even hinted that a plan of 
 elopement was discovered. A duel was the consequence, with 
 one of the fiery relations of the princess. Letoriferes received 
 two sword-thrusts in his right side. His wounds were serious, 
 yet after two or three days' confinement he could not resist his 
 impatience to see the princess. He succeeded in scaling the 
 walls of the abbey, and obtaining an interview in an arcade 
 leading to the cloister of the cemetery. . The interview of the 
 lovers was long and tender. They exchanged vows of eternal 
 fideUty, and flattered themselves with hopes of future happi- 
 ness, which they were never to realize. After repeated fare- 
 wells, the princess re-entered the convent, never again to 
 behold the charming Letorieres. On the following morning 
 his corpse was found stiil and cold on the pavement of the 
 cloister ! 
 
 It would seem that the wounds of the unf ortimate youth had 
 been reopened by his efforts to get over the wall ; that he had 
 refrained from calling assistance, lest he should expose the 
 princess, and that he had bled to death, without any one to aid 
 him, or to close his dying eyes. 
 
 THE EAELY EXPERIENCES OF EALPH RINGWOOD.* 
 
 NOTED DOWN FEOM ms CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 " I AM a Kentuckian by residence and choice, but a Virginian 
 by birth. The cause of my first leaving the ' Ancient Domin- 
 ion,' and emigrating to Kentucky, was a jackass! You stare, 
 but have a little patience, and I'll soon show you how it came 
 to pass. My father, who was of one of the old Virginian 
 families, resided in Richmond. He was a widower, and his 
 
 * Ralph Ringwood, though a, flotitious name, is a real personage: the worthy 
 original is now living and flourishing in honorable station. I havo given some 
 anecdotes of his early and eccentric career in. as nearly as loan recollect, the very 
 words in which he related them. They certainly a(Tni-dcrl strong temptations to 
 the embellishments of Action ; but I thought them fo striliing'v • '■■iracteristic ff the 
 individual, and of the scenes and society into which hi- jiecuHar humors carried 
 him, that I preferred giving them in their original simplicity G. c. 
 
EARLT EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RING WOOD. I17 
 
 domestic affairs were managed by a housekeeper of the old 
 school, such as used to administer the concerns of opulent Vir- 
 ginian households. She was a dignitary that almost rivalled 
 my father in importance, and seemed to think everything he- 
 longed to her; in fact, she was so considerate in her economy, 
 and so careful of expense, as sometimes to vex my father, who 
 would swear she was disgracing him by her meanness. She 
 always appeared with that ancient iiisignia of housekeeping 
 trust and authority, a great bunch of keys jingling at her 
 girdle. She superintended the arrangements of the table at 
 every meal, and saw that the dishes were all placed according 
 to her primitive notions of symmetry. In the evening she 
 took her stand £ind served out tea with a mingled respectful- 
 ness and pride of station, truly exemplary. Her great 
 ambition was to have everything in order, and that the estab- 
 lishment under her sway should be cited as a model of good 
 housekeeping. If anything went wrong, poor old Barbara 
 would take it to heart, and sit in her room and cry ; imtil a 
 few chapters in the Bible would quiet her spirits, and' make all 
 calm again. The Bible, in fact, was her constant resort in time 
 of trouble. She opened it indiscriminately, and whether she 
 chanced among the lamentations of Jeremiah, the Canticles of 
 Solomon, or the rough enumeration of the tribes in Beuter^ 
 onomy, a chapter was a chapter, and operated like balm to her 
 soul. Such was our good old housekeeper Barbara, who was 
 destined, unwittingly, to have a most important effect upon 
 my destiny. 
 
 "It came to pass, during the days of my juvenility, while I 
 was yet what is termed ' an unlucky boy,' that a gentleman of 
 our neighborhood, a great advocate for experiments and im- 
 provements of all kinds, took it into his head that it would be 
 an immense pubUc advantage to introduce a breed of mules, 
 and accordingly imported three jacks to stock the neighbor- 
 hood. This in a part of the country where the people cared 
 for nothing but blood horses I Why, sir 1 they would have con- 
 sidered their mares disgraced and their whole stud dishonored 
 by such a misalliance. The whole matter was a town tp.Ik and 
 a town scandal. The worthy amalgamator of quadrupeds 
 found himself in a diSmal scrape; so he backed out in time, 
 abjured the whole doctrine of amalgamation, and turned his 
 jacks loose to shift for themselves upon the town common. 
 There they used to run about and lead an idle, good-for- 
 nothing, hoHday life, the happiest animals in the country. 
 
I-IS THE CliATON PAPimS. 
 
 "It so happened that my way to school lay across this 
 common. The first time that I saw one of these animals it set 
 up a braying and frightened me confoundedly. However, I 
 soon got over my fright, and seeing that it had something of 
 a horse look, my Virginian love for anything of the equestrian 
 species predominated, and I determined to back it. I accord- 
 ingly applied at a grocer's shop, procured a cord that had been 
 round a loaf of sugar, and made a kind of halter; then sum- 
 moning some of my school-feUows, we drove master Jack 
 about the common until we hemmed him in an angle of a 
 'worm fence.' After some difficulty, we fixed the halter 
 round his muzzle, and I mounted. Up flew his heels, away I 
 went over his head, and off he scampered. However, I was on 
 my legs in a twinkling, gave chase, caught him, and remounted. 
 By dint of repeated tumbles I soon learned to stick to his back, 
 so that he could no more cast me than he could his own skin. 
 From that time, master Jack and his companions had a scam- 
 pering life of it, for we aU rode them between school hours, 
 and on hoHday afternoons ; and you may be sure school-boys' 
 nags are never permitted to suffer the grass to grow imder 
 their feet. They soon became so knowing that they took to 
 their heels at the very sight of a school-boy; and we were 
 generally much longer in chasing than we were in riding them. 
 
 " Sunday approached, on which I projected an equestrian 
 exciu-sion on one of these long-eared steeds. As I knew the 
 jacks would be in great demand on Sunday morning, I secured 
 one over night, and conducted him home, to be ready for an 
 early outset. But where was I to quarter him for the night? 
 I could not put him in the stable ; our old black groom George 
 was as absolute in that domain as Barbara was within doors, 
 and would have thought his stable, his horses, and himself dis- 
 graced, by the introduction of a jackass. I recollected the 
 smoke-house ; an out-building appended to all Virginian estab- 
 lishments for the smoking of hams, and other kinds of meat. 
 So I got the key, put master Jack in, locked the door, returned 
 the key to its place, and went to bed, intending to release my 
 prisoner at an early hour, before any of the fa mil y were awake. 
 J was so tired, however, by the exertions I had made in catch- 
 ing the donkey, that I fell into a sound sleep, and the m.orning 
 broke without my awaking. 
 
 " Not so with dame Barbara, the housekeeper. As usual, to 
 use her own phrase, ' she was up before the crow put his shoes 
 on,' and bustled about to get things in order for breakfast. 
 
EASLT EXPERIENCES OF RALPH SING WOOD. HQ 
 
 Her first resort was to tlie smoke-house. Scarce had she 
 opened the door, when master Jack, tired of his confinement, 
 and glad to be released from darkness, gave a loud bray, and 
 rushed forth. Down dropped old Barbara ; the animal tram- 
 pled over her, and made off for the common. Poor Barbara 1 
 She had never before seen a donkey, and having read in the 
 Bible that the devil went about like a roaring hon, seeking 
 whom he might devour, she took it for granted that this was 
 Beelzebub himself. The kitchen was soon in a hubbub ; the 
 servants hurried to the spot. There lay old Barbara in fits ; 
 as fast as she got out of one, the thoughts of the devil came 
 over her, and she fell into another, for the good soul was 
 devoutly superstitious. 
 
 "As iU luck would have it, among those attracted by the 
 noise was a Httle, cursed, fidgety, crabbed uncle of mine ; one 
 of those uneasy spirits that cannot rest quietly in their beds in 
 the morning, but must be up early, to bother the household. 
 He was only a kind of half -uncle, after all, for he had married 
 my father's sister; yet he assumed great authority on the 
 strength of this left-handed relationship, and was a universal 
 intermeddler and family pest. This prying little busydody 
 soon ferreted out the truth of the story, and discovered, by 
 hook and by crook, that I was at the bottom of the affair, and 
 had locked up the donkey in the smoke-house. He stopped to 
 inquire no further, for he was one of those testy curmudgeons 
 with whom unlucky boys are always in the wrong. Leaving 
 old Barbara to wrestle in imagination with the devil, he made 
 for my bed-chamber, where I still lay wrapped in rosy slum- 
 bers, little dreaming of the mischief I had done, and the storm 
 about to break over me. 
 
 " In an instant I was awakened by a shower of thwacks, and 
 started up in wild amazement. I demanded the meaning of 
 this attack, but received no other reply than that I had 
 murdered the housekeeper ; whUe my uncle continued whack- 
 ing away during my confusion. I seized a poker, and put 
 myself on the defensive. I was a stout boy for my years, 
 while my uncle was a little wiffet of a man ; one that in Ken- 
 tucky we would not call even an ' individual ; ' nothing more 
 than a 'remote circumstance.' I soon, therefore, brought him 
 to a parley, and learned the whole extent of the charge brought 
 against me. I confessed to the donkey and the smoke-house, 
 but pleaded not guilty of the murder of the housekeeper. 1 
 soon found out that old Barbara was still alive. She con- 
 
120 THE CHA TON PAPERS. 
 
 tinued tmder the doctor's hands, however, for several days; 
 and whenever she had an ill turn my uncle would seek to gi¥B 
 me another flogging. I appealed to my father, but got no 
 redress. I was considered an 'tmlucky boy,' prone to all 
 kinds of mischief; so that prepossessions were against me in 
 all cases of appeal. 
 
 "I felt stung to the soul at aU this. I had been beaten, 
 degraded, and treated with slighting when I complained. I 
 lost my usual good spirits and good himior; and, being out of 
 temper with everybody, fancied everybody out of temper with 
 me. A certain wild, roving spirit of freedom, which I beheve 
 is as inherent in me as it is ia the partridge, was brought into 
 sudden activity by the checks and restraints I suffered. ' 111 
 go from home,' thought I, 'and shift for myself.' Perhaps 
 this notion was quicferned by the rage for emigrating to Ken- 
 tucky, which was at that time prevalent in Virgtoia. I had 
 heard such stories of the romantic beauties of the country ; of 
 the abundance of game of all kinds, and of the glorious inds- 
 pendent hfe of the himters who ranged its noble forests, and 
 hved by the rifle ; that I was as much agog to get there as boys 
 who Hve in sea-ports are to laim.ch themselves among the won- 
 ders and adventures of the ocean. 
 
 "After a time old Barbara got better in mind and body, and 
 matters were explained to her ; and she became gradually con- 
 vinced that it was not the devil she had encoimtered. When 
 she heard how harshly I had been treated on her account, the 
 good old soul was extremely grieved, and spo"ke warmly to my 
 father in my behalf. He had kimself remarked the change 
 in my behavior, and thought punishment might have been 
 carried too far. He sought, therefore, to have some conversa- 
 tion with me, and to soothe my feelings ; but it was too late. 
 I frankly told him the course of mortification that I had ex- 
 perienced, and the fixed determination I had made to go from 
 home. 
 
 ' And where do you mean to go? ' 
 'To Kentucky.' 
 
 ' To Kentucky ! Why, you know nobody there.' 
 ' No matter: I can soon make acquaintances.' 
 ' And what will you do when you get there? ' 
 "'Hunt!' 
 
 " My fa.ther gave a long, low widstle, and looked in my face 
 with a serio-comic expression. I was not far in my teens, and 
 to talk of setting off alone for Kentucky, to turn hunter, 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPB RING WOOD. 121 
 
 seemed doubtless the idle prattle of a boy. He was little 
 aware of the dogged resolution of my character; and his 
 smile of incredulity but fixed me more obstinately in my pur- 
 pose. I assured him I was serious in what I said, and would 
 certainly set ofE for Kentucky in the spring. 
 
 " Month after month passed away. My father now and then 
 adverted slightly to what had passed between us; doubtless 
 for the purpose of sounding me. I always expressed the same 
 grave and fixed determination. By degrees he spoke to mo 
 more directly on the subject, endeavoring earnestly but kindly 
 to dissuade me. My only reply w£is, ' I had made up my mind. ' 
 
 "Accordingly, as soon as the spring had fairly opened, I 
 sought him one day in his study, and informed him I was 
 about to set out for Kentucky, and had come to take my 
 leave. He made no objection, for he had exhausted persua- 
 sion and remonstrance, and doubtless thought it best to give 
 way to my hmnor, trusting that a little rough experience 
 would soon bring me home again. I asked money for my 
 journey. He went to a chest, took out a long green silk purse, 
 well filled, and laid it on the table. I now asked for a horse 
 and servant. 
 
 "'A horse!' said my father, sneeringly: 'why, you would 
 not go amUe without racing him, and breaking your neck; 
 and as to a servant, you cannot take care of yourself, much 
 less of him.' 
 
 " ' How am I to travel, then? ' 
 
 " 'Why, I suppose you are man enough to travel on foot.' 
 
 " He spoke jestingly, little thkiking I would take him at his 
 word; but I was thoroughly piqued in respect to my enter- 
 prise; so I pocketed the purse, went to my room, tied up three 
 or four shirts in a pocket-handkerchief, put a dirk in my 
 bosom, girt a couple of pistols round my waist, and felt like 
 a knight-errant armed cap-^-pie, and ready to rove the world 
 in quest of adventures. 
 
 "My sister (I had "but one) hung round me and wept, and 
 entreated meto stay. I felt my heart sweU in my throat; but 
 I gulped it back to its place, and straightened myself up: I 
 would not sufEer myself to cry. I at length disengaged my- 
 self from her, and got to the door. 
 
 " ' "When wUl you come back? ' cried she. 
 
 " ' Never, by heavens ! ' cried I, ' until I come back a member 
 of Congress from Kentucky. I am determined to show that I 
 am not the tail-end of the family.' 
 
122 TEE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 " Such was my first outset from home. You may suppose 
 ■what a greenhorn I was, and how little I knew of the world I 
 was launching into. 
 
 "I do not recollect any incident of importance, until I 
 reached the borders of Pennsylvania. I had stopped at an inn 
 to get some refreshment ; and as I was eating in the back room, 
 I overheard two men in the bar-room conjecture who and what 
 I could be. One determined, at length, that I was a run-away 
 apprentice, and ought to be stopped, to which the other as- 
 sented. When I had finished my meal, and paid for it, I went 
 out at the back door, lest I should be stopped by my super- 
 visors. Scorning, however, to steal off iilse a culprit, I walked 
 round to the front of the house. One of the men advanced to 
 the front door. He wore his hat on one side, and had a conse- 
 quential air that nettled me. 
 
 " ' Where are you going, youngster? ' demanded he. 
 
 " 'That's none of your business! ' repUed I, rather pertly. 
 
 " ' Yes, but it is, though! You have run away from home, 
 and must give an account of yourself.' 
 
 ^' He advanced to seize me, when I drew forth a pistol. ' If 
 you advance another step, I'U shoot you ! ' 
 
 " He sprang back as if he had trodden upon a rattlesnake, 
 and his hat feU off in the movement. 
 
 ' ' ' Let him alone ! ' cried his companion ; ' he's a foolish, mad- 
 headed boy, and don't know what he's about. He'll shoot you, 
 you may rely on it.' 
 
 " He did not need any caution in the matter; he was afraid 
 even to pick up his hat: so I pushed forward on my way, 
 without molestation. This incident, however, had its effect 
 upon me. I became fearful of sleeping in any house at night, 
 lest I should be stopped. I took my meals in the houses, in the 
 course of the day, but would turn aside at night into some 
 wood or ravine, make a fire, and sleep before it. This I con- 
 sidered was true hunter's style, and I wished to inure myself 
 to it. 
 
 "At length I arrived at Brownsville, leg- weary and way- 
 worn, and in a shabby pHght, as you may suppose, having been 
 ' camping out ' for some nights past. I applied at some of the 
 inferior inns, but could gain no admission. I was regarded for 
 a moment mth a dubious eye, and then informed they did not 
 receive foot-passengers. At last I went boldly to the principal 
 inn. The landlord appeared as unwilling as the rest to receive 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RINQWOOD. 123 
 
 a vagrant boy beneath his roof; but his wife interfered in the 
 midst of his excuses, and half elbowing him aside ; 
 
 " ' Where are you going, my lad? ' said she. 
 
 '"To Kentucky.' 
 
 " ' What are you going there for? ' 
 
 '"To hunt.' 
 
 " She looked earnestly at me for a moment or two. ' Have 
 you a mother living? ' said she at length. 
 
 " ' No, madam: she has been dead for some time.' 
 
 " ' I thought so ! ' cried she, warmly. ' I knew if you had a 
 mother Hving, you would not be here. ' From that momont'the 
 good woman treated me with a mother's kindness. 
 
 " I remained several days beneath her roof, recovering from 
 the fatigue of my journey. While here I purchased a rifle and 
 practised daily at a mark to prepare myself for a hunter's life. 
 When sufficiently recruited in strength I took leave of my 
 kind host and hostess and resumed my journey. 
 
 " At Wheeling I embarked in a flat-bottomed family boat, 
 technically called a broad-horn, a prime river conveyance in 
 those days. In this ark for two weeks I floated down the 
 Ohio. The river was as yet in all its wild beauty. Its loftiest 
 trees had not been thinned out. The forest overhung the 
 water's edge, and was occasionally skirted by immense cane- 
 brakes. Wild animals of all kinds abounded. We heard them 
 rushing through the thickets and plashing in the water. Deer 
 and bears would frequently swim across the river; others 
 would come down to the bank and gaze at the boat as it passed. 
 I was incessantly on the alert with my rifle ; but somehow oi 
 other the game was never within shot. Sometimes I got a 
 chance to land and try my skill on shore. I shot squirrels and 
 small birds and even wild turkeys; but though I caught 
 glimpses of deer bounding away through the woods, I never 
 could get a fair shot at them. 
 
 "In this way we glided in our broad-horn past Oiacuinati, 
 the 'Queen of the West,' as she is now called, then a mere 
 group of log cabins; and the site of the busthhg city of Louis- 
 ville, then designated by a soMtary house. As I said before, 
 the Ohio was as yet a wild river; aU was forest, forest, forest! 
 Near the confluence of Green Eiver with the Ohio, I landed, 
 bade adieu to the broad-horn, and struck for the interior of 
 Kentucky. I had no precise plan; my only idea was to make 
 for one of the wildest parts of the country. I had relatives in 
 Lexington and other settled places, to whom I thought it prob- 
 
124 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 able my father would write concerning me : so as I was full of 
 manhood and independence, and resolutely bent on making 
 my way in the world without assistance or control, I resolved 
 to keep clear of them aU. 
 
 "In the course of my first day's trudge, I shot a wild turkey, 
 and slung it on my back for provisions. The forest was open 
 and clear from underwood. I saw deer in abundance, but 
 always running, running. It seemed to me as if these animals 
 never stood stiU. 
 
 " At length I came to where a gang of half -starved wolves 
 were feasting on the carcass of a deer which they had run 
 down; and snarling and snapping and fighting hke so many 
 dogs. They were all so ravenous and intent upon their prey 
 that they did not notice me, and I had time to make my obser- 
 vations. One, larger and fiercer than the rest, seemed to claim 
 the larger share, and to keep the others in awe. If any one 
 came too near him while eating, ho would fly ofiE, seize and 
 Shake him, and then return to his repast. ' This,' thought I, 
 ' must be the captain; if I can kiU him, I shall defeat the whole 
 army.' I accordingly took aim, fired, and down dropped the 
 old f eUow. He might be only shamming dead ; so I loaded and 
 put a second ball through him. He never budged ; ail the rest 
 ran off, and my victory was complete. 
 
 "It would not be easy to describe my triumphant feelings 
 on this great achievement. I marched on with renovated 
 spirit, regarding myself as absolute lord of the forest. As 
 night drew near, I prepared for camping. My first care was to 
 coUect dry wood and make a roaring fire to cook and sleep by, 
 and to frighten off wolves, and bears, and panthers. I then 
 began to pluck my turkey for supper. I had camped out 
 several times in the early part of my expedition ; but that was 
 in comparatively more settled and civilized regions, where 
 there were no wild animals of consequence in the forest. This 
 was my first camping out in the real wilderness ; and I was 
 soon made sensible of the lonehness and wildness of my situa- 
 tion. 
 
 "In a Uttle while a concert of wolves commenced: there 
 might have been a dozen or two, but it seemed to me as if there 
 were thousands. I never heard such howhng and whining. 
 Having prepared my turkey, I divided it into two parts, thrust 
 two sticks into one of the halves, and planted them on end 
 before the fire, the hunter's mode of roasting. The smell of 
 roast meat quickened the appetites of the wolves, and their 
 
EARLY EXPEIUKJSCES OF liALPH RING WOOD. 125 
 
 concert became truly infernal. They seemed to be all around 
 me, but I could only now and then get a glimpse of one of 
 them, as he came within the glare of the light. 
 
 "I did not much care for the wolves, who I knew to be o 
 cowardly race, but I had heard terrible stories of panthers, 
 and began to fear their stealthy prowhngs in the surrounding 
 darkness. I was thirsty, and heard a brook bubbUng and 
 trnlding along at no great distance, but absolutely dared not go 
 there, lest some panther might lie in wait, and spring upon me. 
 By and by a deer whistled. I had never heard one before, and 
 thought it must be a panther. I now felt uneasy lest he might 
 chmb the trees, crawl along the branches overhead, and plump 
 down upon me ; so I kept my eyes fixed on the branches, imtil 
 my head ached. I more than once thought I saw fiery eyes 
 glaring down from among the leaves. At length I thought of 
 my supper and turned to see if my half-turkey was cooked. 
 In crowding so near the fire I had pressed the meat into the 
 flames, and it was consvuned. I had nothing to do but toast 
 the other half, and take better care of it. On that half I made 
 my supper, without salt or bread. I was stiU so possessed 
 with the dread of panthers, that I could not close my eyes all 
 night, but lay watching the trees until daybreak, when all my 
 fears were dispelled with the darkness ; and as I saw the morn- 
 ing sun sparkMng down through the branches of the trees, I 
 smiled to think how I had suffered myeelf to be dismayed by 
 sounds and shadows: but I was a young woodsman, and a 
 stranger in Kentucky. 
 
 "Having breakfasted on the remainder of my turkey, and 
 slaked my thirst at the bubbhng stream, without further dread 
 of panthers, I resumed my wayfaring with buoyant feelings. 
 I again saw deer, but as usual running, running ! I tried in 
 vain to get a shot at them, and began to fear I nc -^r should. 
 I was gazing in vexation after a herd in full scamper, when I 
 was startled by a human voice. Turning round, I saw a man 
 at a short distance from me, in a hunting-dress. 
 
 " 'What are you after, my lad?' cried he. 
 
 " 'Those deer,' replied I, pettishly, 'but it seems as if they 
 never stand still.' 
 
 " Upon that he burst out laughing. ' Where are you from! ' 
 said he. 
 
 " ' From Richmond.' 
 
 " ' What ! In old Virginny? ' 
 
 "' The same.' 
 
126 TUE URATON PAPERS. 
 
 " ' And how on earth did you get here ? ' 
 
 " ' I landed at Green River from a broad-horn.' 
 
 " 'And where are your companions?' 
 
 '"I have none.' 
 
 '"What?— all alone!' 
 
 "'Yes.' 
 
 " 'Where are you going?' 
 
 " 'Anywhere.' 
 
 '" ' And what have you come here for ? ' 
 
 '"To hunt.' 
 
 "'WeU,' said he, laughingly, 'you'U make a real hunter; 
 there's no mistaking that ! Have you killed anything? ' 
 
 " 'Nothing hut a turkey; I can't get within shot of a deer: 
 they are always running.' 
 
 " ' Oh, I'll tell you the secret of that. You're always pushing 
 forward, and starting the deer at a distance, and gazing at 
 those that are scampering; but you must step as slow, and 
 silent, and cautious as a cat, and keep your eyes close around 
 you, and lurk from tree to tree, if you wish to get a chance at 
 deer. But come, go home with me. My name is BOl Smithers ; 
 I live not far off : stay with me a little while, and I'U teach you 
 how to hunt.' 
 
 "I gladly accepted the invitation of honest Bill Smithers. 
 We soon reached his habitation ; a mere log hut, with a square 
 hole for a window, and a chimney made of sticks and clay. 
 Here he hved, with a wife and child. He had 'girdled' the 
 trees for an acre or two around, preparatory to clearing a 
 space for com and potatoes. In the mean time he maintained 
 his family entirely by his rifle, and I soon found him to be a 
 first-rate huntsman. Under his tutelage I received my first 
 effective lessons in 'woodcraft.' 
 
 "The more I knew of a hunter's life, the more I relished it. 
 The country, too, which had been the promised land of mj' 
 boyhood, did not, like most promised lands, disappoint me. 
 No wilderness could be more, beautiful than this part of Ken- 
 tucky, in those times. The forests were open and spacious, 
 with noble trees, some of which looked as if they had stood for 
 centuries. There were beautiful prairies, too, diversified witii 
 groves and clumps of trees, which looked like vast parks, 
 and in which you could see the deer running, at a great dis- 
 tance. In the proper season these prairies would be covered 
 in many places with wild strawberries, where your horse's 
 hoofs would be dyed to the fetlock. I thought there could not 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RINOWOOD. ]27 
 
 be another place in the world equal to Kentucky — and I think 
 so stiU. 
 
 "After I had passed ten or twelve days with Bill Smithers, 
 I thought it time to shift my quarters, for his house was 
 scarce large enough for his own family, and I had no idea of 
 being an incumbrance to any one. I accordingly made up my 
 bundle, shouldered my rifle, took a friendly leave of Smithers 
 and his wife, and set out in quest of a Nimrod of the wilderness, 
 one John MiUer, who lived alone, nearly forty miles off, and 
 who I hoped would be well pleased to have a hunting com- 
 panion. 
 
 "I soon found out that one of the most important items in 
 woodcraft in a new country was the skill to find one's way in 
 the wilderness. There were no regular roads in the forests, 
 but they were cut up and perplexed by paths leading in all 
 directions. Some of these were made by the cattle of the set- 
 tlers, and were called 'stock-tracks,' but others had been made 
 by the immense droves of buffaloes which roamed about the 
 country, from the flood until recent times. These were called 
 buffalo-tracks, and traversed Kentucky from end to end, Hko 
 highways. Traces of them may stiU be seen in uncultivated 
 parts, or deeply worn in the rocks where they crossed the 
 mountains. I was a yoimg woodsman, and sorely puzzled to 
 distinguish one kind of track from the other, or to make out 
 my course through this tangled labyrinth. While thus per- 
 plexed, I heard a distant roaring and rushing sound ; a gloom 
 stole over the forest : on looking up, when I could catch a stray 
 ghmpse of the sky, I beheld the clouds rolled up like balls, the 
 lower parts as black as ink. There was now and then an ex- 
 plosion, like a burst of cannonry afar off, and the crash of a 
 falling tree. I had heard of hurricanes in the woods, and sur- 
 mised that one was at hand. It soon came crashing its way ; 
 the forest writhing, and twisting, and groaning before it. The 
 htirricane did not extend far on either side, but in a manner 
 ploughed a furrow through the woodland; snapping off or up- 
 rooting trees that had stood for centuries, and filling the air 
 with whirMng branches. I was directly in its course, and took 
 my stand behind an immense poplar, six feet in diameter. It 
 bore for a time the fuU fury of the blast, but at length began 
 to yield. Seeing it faUing, I scrambled nimbly round tho 
 trunk like a squirrel. Down it went, bearing down another 
 tree with it. I crept under tho trunk as a shelter, and was 
 protected from other trees which fell around me, but was sore 
 
128 tum crayon papers. 
 
 all over from the twigs and branches driven against me by the 
 blast. 
 
 "This was the only incident of consequence that occurred 
 on my way to John Miller's, where I arrived on the following 
 day, and was received by the veteran with the rough kindness 
 of a baclrwoodsman. He was a gray-haired man, hardy and 
 weather-beaten, with a blue wart, like a great bead, over one 
 eye, whence he was nicknamed by the hunters 'Blue-bead 
 MUler.' He had been in these parts from the earliest settle- 
 ments, and had signahzed himself in the hard conflicts with 
 the Indians, which gained Kentucky the appellation of ' the 
 Bloody Ground.' In one of these fights he had had an arm 
 broken ; in another he had narrowly escaped, when hotly pur- 
 sued, by jumping from a precipice thirty feet high into a river. 
 
 " Miller willingly received me into his house as an inmate, 
 and seemed pleased with the idea of making a hunter of me. 
 His dwelling was a small log-house, with a loft or garret of 
 boards, so that there was ample room for both of us. Under 
 his instruction I soon made a tolerable proficiency in hunting. 
 My first exploit, of aiw consequence, was killing a bear. I 
 was hunting in company with two brothers, when we came 
 upon the track of Bruin, in a wood where there was an under- 
 growth of canes and grape-vines. He was scrambHng up a 
 tree, when I shot him through the breast : he fell to the ground 
 and lay motionless. The brothers sent in their dog, who seized 
 the bear by the throat. Bruin raised one arm, and gave the 
 dog a hug that crushed his ribs. One yeU, and all was over. 
 I don't know which was first dead, the dog or the bear. The 
 two brothers sat down and cried like children over their un- 
 fortunate dog. Yet they were mere rough huntsmen, aJmos^ 
 as wild and untameable as Indians : but thej'- were fine fellows. 
 
 "By degrees I became known, and somewhat of a favorite 
 among the hunters of the neighborhood; that is to say, men 
 who lived within a circle of thirty or forty miles, and came 
 occasionally to see John Miller, who was a patriarch among 
 them. They lived widely apart, in log huts and wigwams, 
 almost with the simplicity of Indians, and well-nigh as desti- 
 tute of the comforts and inventions of civilized life. They 
 seldom saw each other; weeks, and even months would elapse, 
 without their visiting. When they did meet, it was very 
 much after the manner of Indians; loitering about all day, 
 without having much to say, but becoming communicative as 
 evening advanced, and sitting up half the night before the fire, 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RING WOOD. 129 
 
 telling hunting stories, and terrible tales of the fights of the 
 Bloody Ground. 
 
 "Sometimes several would join in a distant hunting expedi- 
 tion, or rather campaign. Expeditions of this kind lasted from 
 November until Apiil ; during which we laid up our stock of 
 summer provisions. We shifted our hunting camps from 
 place to place, according as we found the game. They were 
 generally pitched near a run of water, and close by a cane-brake, 
 to screen us from the wind. One side of our lodge was open 
 toward the fii-e. Our horses were hoppled and tm-ned loose in 
 the cane-brakes, with bells round their necks. One of the 
 party stayed at home to watch the camp, prepare the meals, 
 and keep off the wolves ; the others hunted. When a hunter 
 kUled a deer at a distance from the camp, he would open it and 
 take out the entrails ; then climbing a sapling, he would bend 
 it down, tie the deer to the top, and let it spring up again, so 
 as to suspend the carcass out of reach of the wolves. At night 
 he would return to the camp, and give an account of his luck. 
 The next jnoming early he would get a horse out of the cane- 
 brake and bring home his game. That day he would stay at 
 home to cut up the carcass, while the others hunted. 
 
 " Our days were thus spent in silent and lonely occupations. 
 It was only at night that we would gather together before the 
 fire, and be sociable. I was a novice, and used to listen with 
 open eyes and oars to the strange and wild stories told by the 
 old hunters, and believed everything I heard. Some of their 
 stories bordered upon the supernatural. They believed that 
 their rifles might be spell-bound, so as not to be able to kill a 
 buffalo, even at arm's length. This superstition they had 
 derived from the Indians, who often think the white hunters 
 Jiave laid a spell upon their rifles. Miller partook of this 
 superstition, and used to tell of his rifle's having a spoil upon 
 it; but it often seemed to me to be a shuflling way of account- 
 ing for a bad shot. If a hunter grossly missed his aim he 
 would ask, ' Who shot last with this rifle?'— and hint that he 
 must have charmed it. The sure mode to disenchant the gnin 
 was to shoot a silver bullet out of it. 
 
 " By the opening of spring we would generally have quanti- 
 ties of bear's-meat and venison salted, dried, and smoked, and 
 numerous packs of skins. We would then make the best of 
 our way home from our distant hunting-grounds ; transporting 
 our spoils, sometimes in canoes along the rivers, sometimes 
 on horseback over land, and our return would often be cele- 
 
130 TEE CRAYON PAPEB8. 
 
 brated by feasting and dancing, in true backwoods style. I 
 have given you some idea of our himting; let me now give you 
 a sketch of our frolicking. 
 
 "It was on our return from a winter's hunting in the neigh- 
 borhood of Green River, when we received notice that there 
 was to be a grand frolic at Bob Moscly's, to greet the hunters. 
 This Bob Mosely was a prime fellow throughout the country. 
 He was an indifferent hunter, it is true, and rather lazy ta 
 boot ; but then he could play the fiddle, and that was enough 
 to make him of consequence. There was no other man within 
 a hundred miles that could play the fiddle, so there was no 
 having a regular froMc without Bob Mosely. The himtors, 
 therefore, were always ready to give him a share of their 
 game in exchange for his music, and Bob was always ready to 
 get up a carousal, whenever there was a party returning from 
 a hunting expedition. The present frolic was to take place 
 at Bob Mosely's own house, which was on the Pigeon Eoost 
 Fork of the Muddy, which is a branch of Eough Creek, which 
 is a branch of Green Eiver. 
 
 "Everybody was agog for the revel at Bob Moscley's; and as 
 all the fashion of the neighborhood was to be there, I thought 
 I must brush up for the occasion. My leathern hunting-dress, 
 which was the only one I had, was somewhat the worse for 
 wear, it is true, and considerably japanned with blood and 
 grease; but I was up to hunting expedients. Getting into a 
 periogue, I paddled oflt to a part of the Green River where 
 there was sand and clay, that might serve for soap ; then taking 
 off my dress, I scrubbed and scoured it, until I thought it looked 
 very well. I then put it on the end of a stick, and hung it out 
 of the periogue to dry, while I stretched myself very comfortr 
 ably on the green bank of the river. UnluckUy a flaw struck 
 the periogue, and tipped over the stick : down went my dress 
 to the bottom of the river, and I never saw it more. Here was 
 I, left almost in a state of nature. I managed to make a kind 
 of Robinson Crusoe garb of undressed skins, with the hair on, 
 which enabled me to get home with decency ; but my dream of 
 gayety and fashion was at an end ; for how could I think of 
 figuring in high life at the Pigeon Roost, equipped like a mere 
 Orson? 
 
 " Old Miller, who really began to take some pride in me, was 
 confounded when he understood that I did not intend to go to 
 Bob Mosely's ; but when I told him my misfortune, and that I 
 had no dress: ' By the powers,' cried he, 'but you shall go, and 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RINGWOOB. 131 
 
 you shall be the best dressed and the best mounted lad 
 there!' 
 
 "He immediately set to work to cut out and make up a 
 himting-shirt of dressed deer-skin, gayly fringed at the shoul- 
 ders, with leggings of the same, fringed from hip to heel. He 
 then made me a ralcish raccoon-cap, with a flaunting tail to it; 
 mounted mo on his best horse ; and I may say, without vanity, 
 that I was one of the smartest fellows that figjured on that 
 occasion, at the Pigeon Eoost Fork of the Muddy. 
 
 "It was no small occasion, either, let me tell you. Bob 
 Mosely's house was a tolerably large bark shanty, with a clap- 
 board roof; and there were assembled aU the young hunters and 
 pretty girls of the country, for many a mile round. The young 
 men were in their best hunting-dresses, but not one could com- 
 pare with mine; and my raccoon-cap, with its flowing tail,, was 
 the admiration of everybody. The girls were mostly in doe- 
 skin dresses ; for there was no spinning and weaving as yet in 
 the woods; nor any need of it. I never saw girls that seemed 
 to me better dressed ; and I was somewhat of a judge, having 
 seen fashions at Richmond. We had a hearty dinner, and a 
 merry one ; for there was Jemmy Kiel, famous for raccoon- 
 hunting, and Bob Tarleton, and Wesley Pigman, and Joe Tay- 
 lor, and several other prime fellows for a froMc, that made aU 
 ring again, and laughed, that you might have heard them a 
 mile. 
 
 " After dinner we began dancing, and were hard at it, when, 
 about three o'clock in the afternoon, there was a new arrival — 
 the two daughters of old Simon Schultz ; two young ladies that 
 affected fashion and late hours. Their arrival had nearly put 
 an end to all our merriment. I must go a little roundabout in 
 my story to explain to you how that happened. 
 
 "As old Schultz, the father, was one day looking in the cane- 
 brakes for his catile, he came upon the track of horses. He 
 knew they were none of his, and that none of his neighbors had 
 horses about that place. They must be stray horses ; or must 
 belong to some traveller who had lost his way, as the track led 
 nowhere. He accordingly followed it up, until he came to an 
 unlucky peddler, -svith two or throe pack-horses, who had been 
 bewildered among the cattle-tracks, and had wandered for two 
 or three days among woods and cane-brakes, imtil he was almost 
 famished. 
 
 " Old Schultz brought him to his house; fed him on venison, 
 bear's meat, and hominy, and at the end of a week put him in 
 
132 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 prime condition. The peddler could not suflaciently express his 
 thankfulness ; and when about to depart, inquired what he had 
 to pay? Old Schultz stepped back with surprise. 'Stranger,' 
 said he, ' you have been welcome under my roof. I've given 
 you nothing but wUd meat and hominy, because I had no bet- 
 ter, but have been glad of your company. You are welcome 
 to stay as long as you please ; but, by Zounds ! if any one offers 
 to pay Simon Schultz for food he affronts him ! ' So saying, he 
 walked out in a huff. 
 
 " The peddler admired the hospitaUty of his host, but could 
 not reconcile it to his conscience to go away without making 
 some recompense. There wore honest Simon's two daughters, 
 two strapping, red-haired girls. He opened his packs and dis- 
 played riches before them of which they had no conception ; 
 for in those days there were no country stores ia those parts, 
 with their artificial finery and trinketry ; and this was the first 
 peddler that had wandered into that part of the wilderness. 
 The girls were for a time completely dazzled, and knew not 
 what to choose: but what caught their eyes most were two 
 looking-glasses, about the size of a dollar, set in gilt tin. They 
 had never seen the like before, having used no other mirror 
 than a pail of water. The peddler presented them with these 
 jewels, without the least hesitation; nay, he gallantly hung 
 them round their necks by red ribbons, almost as 'fine as the 
 glasses themselves. This done, he took his departure, leaving 
 them as much astonished as two princesses in a fairy tale, that 
 have received a magic gift from an enchanter. 
 
 " It was with these looking-glasses, hung round their necks 
 as lockets, by red ribbons, that old Schultz's daughters made 
 their appearance at three o'clock in the afternoon, at the froUc 
 at Bob Mosely's, on the Pigeon Roost Fork of the Muddy. 
 
 "By the powers, but it was an event! Such a thing had 
 never before been seen in Kentucky. Bob Tarleton, a strap- 
 ping feUow, with a head like a chestnut-burr, and a look like a 
 boar in an apple orchard, stepped up, caught hold of the look- 
 ing-glass of one of the girls, and gazing at it for a moment, 
 cried out : ' Joe Taylor, come here ! come here ! I'll be darn'd 
 if Patty Schultz ain't got a locket that you can see your face in, 
 as clear as in a spring of water ! ' 
 
 "In a twinkling all the young hunters gathered round old 
 Schultz's daughters. I, who knew what looking-glasses were, 
 did not budge. Some of the girls who sat near me were ex-, 
 cessively mortified at finding themselves thus deserted. I heard 
 
EARLY EXPERIEyCES OF RALPH Ri:SGWOOI). I33 
 
 Peggy Pugh say to Sally Pigman, ' Goodness knows, it's well 
 Schultz's daughters is got them thiags round their necks, for 
 it's the first time the young men crowded round them ! ' 
 
 "I saw immediately the danger of the case. We were a 
 small community, and could not afford to be spUt up by feuds. 
 So I stepped up to the girls, and whispered to them: 'PoUy,' 
 said I, 'those lockets are powerful fine, and become you 
 amazingly; but you don't consider that the country is not 
 advanced enough in these parts for such things. You and I 
 imderstand these matters, but these people don't. Fine things 
 like these may do very well in the old settlements, but they 
 won't answ;er at the Pigeon Roost Fork of the Muddy. You 
 had better lay them aside for the present, or we shall have no 
 peace.' 
 
 " Polly and her sister luckily saw their error; they took ofE 
 the lockets, laid them aside, and harmony was restored : other- 
 wise, I verily believe there would have been an end of our 
 community. Indeed, notwithstanding the great sacrifice they 
 made on this occasion, I do not think old Schultz's daughters 
 were ever much liked afterward among the young women. 
 
 "This was the first time that looking-glasses were ever seen 
 in the Green River part of Kentucky. 
 
 "I had now lived some time with old MiUer, and had become 
 a tolerably expert hunter. Game, however, began to grow 
 scarce. The bufEalo had gathered together, as if by universal 
 understanding, and had crossed the Mississippi, never to re- 
 turn. Strangers kept pouring into the country, clearing away 
 the forests, and building in all directions. The hunters began 
 to grow restive. Jemmy Kiel, the same of whom I have already 
 spoken for his skill in raccoon catching, came to me one day : 
 ' I can't stand this any longer, ' said he ; ' we're getting too thick 
 here. Simon Schultz crowds me so, that I have no comfort of 
 myhfe.' 
 
 ' ' ' Why, how you talk ! ' said I ; ' Simon Schultz lives twelve 
 miles off.' 
 
 " 'No matter; his cattle run with mine, and I've no idea of 
 living where another man's cattle can run with mine. That's 
 too close neighborhood; I want elbow-room. This country, 
 too, is growing too poor to live in; there's no game; so two or 
 three of us have made up oiu- minds to follow the buffalo to the 
 Missouri, and we should like to have you of the party.' Other 
 hunters of my acquaintance talked in the same manner. This 
 set me thinking; but the more I thought the more I was per- 
 
134 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 plexed. I had no one to advise with; old MiUer and his asso- 
 ciates knew but of one mode of life, and I had had no experience 
 in any other: but I had a wider scope of thought. When out 
 hunting alone I used to forget the sport, and sit for hours to- 
 gether on the trunk of a tree, with rifle in hand, buried in 
 thought, and debating with myself: 'Shall I go with Jemmy 
 Kiel and his company, or shaU I remain here? If I remain here 
 there will soon be nothing left to hunt ; but am I to be a hunter 
 all my life? Have not I something more in me than to be 
 carrying a rifle on my shoulder, day after day, and dodging 
 about after bears, and deer, and other brute beasts? ' My vanity 
 told me I had; and I called to mind my boyish boast to my 
 sister, that I would never return home, until I retm-ned a 
 member of Congress- from Kentucky; but was this the way to 
 fit myself for such a station? 
 
 "Various plans passed through my mind, but they were 
 abandoned almost as soon as formed. At length I determined 
 on becoming a lawyer. True it is, I knew almost nothing. I 
 had left school before I had learned beyond the ' rule of three.' 
 'Never mind,' said I to myself, resolutely; 'lam a terrible 
 f eUow for hanging on to anything when I've once made up my 
 mind ; and if a man has but ordinary capacity, and will set to 
 work with heart and soul, and stick to it, he can do almost 
 anything.' With this maxim, which has been pretty much 
 my main-stay throughout life, I fortified myself in my deter- 
 mination to attempt the law. But how was I to set about it? 
 I must quit this forest hfe, and go to One or other of the towns, 
 where I might be able to study, and to attend the courts. This 
 toorequired funds. I examined into the state of my finances. 
 The purse given me by my father had remained untouched, in 
 the bottom of an old chest up in the loft, for money was scarcely 
 needed in these parts. I had bargained away the skins a,c- 
 quired in himting, for a horse and various other matters, on 
 which, in case of need, I coiild raise funds. I therefore thought 
 I could make shift to maintain myself untU I was fitted for the 
 bar. 
 
 " I informed my worthy host and patron, old Miller, of my 
 plan. He shook his head at my turning my back upon the 
 woods, when I was in a fair way of making a first-rate hunter; 
 but he made no effort to dissuade me. I accordingly set off in 
 September, on horseback, intending to visit Lexington, Frank- 
 fort, and other of the principal towns, in search of a favorable 
 place to prosecute my studies. My choice was made sooneS 
 
EABLT EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RING WOOD. 135 
 
 than I expected. I had put up one night at Bardstown, and 
 found, on inquiry, that I could get comfortable board and ac- 
 commodation in a private family ibra dollar and a half a week. 
 I liked the place, and resolved to look no farther. So the next 
 morning I prepared to turn my face homeward, and take my 
 final leave of forest life. 
 
 "I had taken my breakfast, and was waiting for my horse, 
 when, in pacing up and down the piazza, I saw a young girl 
 seated near a window, evidently a visitor. She was very 
 pretty; with auburn hair and blue eyes, and was dressed in 
 white. I had seen nothing of the kind since I had left Rich- 
 mond; and at that time I was too much of a boy to be much 
 Btruck by female charms. She was so dehcate and dainty- 
 looking, so different from the hale, buxom, brown girls of the 
 woods; and then her white dress! — ^it was perfectly dazzling! 
 Never was poor youth more taken by surprise, and suddenly 
 bewitched. My heart yearned to know her; but how was I 
 to accost her? I had grown wild in the woods, and had none 
 of the halitudes of poMte life. Had she been like Peggy Pugh 
 or SaUy Rgman, or any other of my leathern-dressed belles of 
 the PigeonRoost, I should have approached her without dread ; 
 nay, had die been as fair as Schultz's daughters, with their 
 looking-glass lockets, I should not have hesitated; but that 
 white dress and those auburn ringlets, and blue eyes, and deli- 
 cate locks, ^luite daunted, while they fascinated me. I don't 
 know what lut it into my head., but I thought, all at once, that 
 I would kissher ! It would take a long acquaintance to arrive 
 at such a bcon, but I might seize upon it by sheer robbery. 
 Nobody knev me here. I would just step in, snatch a kiss, 
 mount my hcrse, and ride off. She would not be the worse for 
 it ; and that loss — oh I I should die if I did not get it I- 
 . "I gave nc time for the thought to cool, but entered the 
 house, and staped lightly into the room. She was seated with 
 her back to tie door, looking out at the window, and did not 
 hear my apprcach. I tapped her chair, and as she turned and 
 looked up, I siatched as sweet a kiss as ever was stolen, and 
 vanished in a twinkling. The next moment I was on horse- 
 back, galloping homeward; my very ears tingling at what I 
 had done. 
 
 "On my retim home I sold my horse, and turned every 
 thing to cash; and found, with the remains of the paternal 
 purse, that I hd nearly four hundred dollars; a little capital 
 which I resolvei to manage with the strictest economy. 
 
136 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 "It was hard parting with old Miller, who had been like a 
 father to me ; it cost me, too, something of a struggle to give 
 up the free, independent wild-wood life I had hitherto led ; but 
 I had marked out my course, and had never been one to flinch 
 or turn back. 
 
 "I footed it sturdily to Bards town; took possession of the 
 quarters for which I had bargained, shut myself up, and set to 
 work -with might and main to study. But what a task I had 
 before me 1 I had everything to learn ; not merely law, but all 
 the elementary branches of knowledge. I read and read, for 
 sixteen hours out of the f our-and-twenty ; but the more 1 read 
 the more I became aware of my own ignorance, and shed bitter 
 tears over my deficiency. It seemed as if the wilderness of 
 knowledge expanded and grew more perplexed as I adyanced. 
 Every height gained only revealed a wider region to te trav- 
 ersed, and nearly filled me with despair. I grew moodf , silent, 
 and unsocial, but studied on doggedly and incessantly. The 
 only person with whom I held any conversation was the worthy 
 man in whose house I was quartered. He was honest and well- 
 meaning, but perfectly ignorant, and I beheve wiuld have 
 iiked me much better if I had not been so much addicted to 
 reading. He considered aU books fiUed with lies ajid imposi- 
 tions, and seldom could look into one without'findingsomething 
 to rouse his spleen. Nothing put him into a greater passion 
 than the assertion that the world turned on its owijaxis every 
 f our-and-twenty hours. He swore it was an outran upon com- 
 mon sense. ' Why, if it did, ' said he, ' there woild not be a 
 drop of water in the well by morning, and aU tie mUk and 
 cream in the dairy would be turned topsy-turvy ! (And then to 
 talk of the earth gomg round the sun ! How do tiey know it? 
 I've seen the sun rise every morning, and set everj evening, for 
 more than thirty years. They must not talk to fne about the 
 earth's going round the sun ! ' i 
 
 "At another time he was in a perfect fret at leing told the 
 distance between the sun and moon. ' How cai any one tell 
 the distance?' cried he. 'Who surveyed it? wlo carried the 
 chain? By Jupiter ! they only talk this way befofe me to annoy 
 me. But then thei-e's some people of sense whdgive in to tMs 
 cursed humbug ! There's Judge Broadnax, nowlne of the best 
 lawyers we have ; isn't it surprising he should lelieve in such 
 stuff ? Why, sir, the other day I heard him talkof the distance 
 from a star he called Mars to the sun ! He imst have got it 
 out of one or other of those confounded bookahe's so fond of 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RIlSdWOOD. 137 
 
 reading; a book some impudent fellow has written, who knew 
 nobody could swear the distance was more or less.' 
 
 " For my own part, feehng my own deficiency in scientific 
 lore, I never ventured to imsettle his conviction that the sun 
 made his daily circuit round the earth ; and for aught I said to 
 the contrary, he lived and died in that belief. 
 
 " I had been about a year at Bardstown, living thus stu- 
 diously and reclusely, when, as I was one day walking the 
 street, I m.et two young girls, in one of whom I immediately 
 recalled the little beauty whom I had kissed so impudently. 
 She blushed up to the eyes, and so did I; but we both passed 
 on without further sign of recognition. This second gMmpse of 
 her, however, caused an odd fluttering about my heart. I 
 could not get her out of my thoughts for days. She quite 
 interfered with my studies. I tried to think of her as a mere 
 cluld, but it would not do; she had improved in beauty, and 
 was tending toward womanhood ; and then I myself was but 
 little better than a stripling. However, I did not attempt to 
 seek after her, or even to find out who she was, but returned 
 doggedly to my books. By degrees she faded from my 
 thoughts, or if she did cross them occasionally, it was only to 
 increase my despondency ; for I feared that with all my exer- 
 tions, I should never be able to fit myself for the bar, or enable 
 myself to support a wife. 
 
 " One cold stormy evening I was seated, in dumpish mood, 
 in the bar-room of the inn, looking into the fire, and turning 
 over ancomfortable thoughts, when I was accosted by some 
 one who had entered the room without my perceiving it. I 
 looked up, and saw before me a tall and, as I thought, pom- 
 pous-lookiag man, arrayed in small-clothes and knee-buckles, 
 with powdered head, and shoes nicely blacked and pohshed; 
 a style of dress unparalleled in those days, in that rough 
 coimtry. I took a pique against him from the very portHness 
 of his appearance, and statehness of his manner, and bristled 
 up as he accosted me. He demanded if my name was not 
 Eingwood. 
 
 " I was startled, for I supposed myself perfectly incog. ; but 
 I answered in the afiirmative. 
 
 " ' Your family, I beUeve, lives in Richmond?' 
 
 "My gorge began to rise. 'Yes, sir,' repUed I, sulkily, 'my 
 family does lives in Richmond.' 
 
 " 'And what, may I ask, has brought you into this part of 
 the country?' 
 
138 TEE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 "'Zounds, gir!' cried I, starting on my feet, 'what busi- 
 ness is it of yours? How dare you to question mo in this 
 manner? ' 
 
 "The entrance of some persons prevented a reply; but I 
 walked up and down the bar-room, fuming with conscious in- 
 dependence and insulted dignity, while the pompous-looking 
 personage, who had thus trespassed upon my spleen, retired 
 without profEering another word. 
 
 " The next day, while seated in my room, some one tapped at 
 the door, and, on being bid to enter, the stranger in the pow- 
 dered! head, small-clothes, and shining shoes and buckles, 
 walked in with ceremonious courtesy. 
 
 ' ' My boyish pride was again in arms ; but he subdued me. 
 He was formal, but kind and friendly. He knew my family 
 and understood my situation, and the dogged struggle I was 
 m.aking. A little conversation, when my jealous pride was 
 once put to rest, drew everything from mo. He was a lawyer 
 of experience and of extensive practice, and offered at once to 
 take me with him, and direct my studies. The offer was too 
 advantageous and gratifying not to be immediately accepted. 
 From that time I began to look up. I was put into a proper 
 track, and was enabled to study to a proper purpose. I made 
 acquaintance, too, with some of the young men of the place, 
 who were in the same pursioit, and was encouraged at finding 
 that I could ' hold my own ' in argument with them. We insti- 
 tuted a debating club, in which I soon became prominent and 
 popular. Men of talents, engaged in other pursuits, joined it, 
 and this diversified our subjects, and put me on various tracks 
 of inquiry. Ladies, too, attended some of our discussions, and 
 this gave them a polite tone, and had an infiuence on the man- 
 ners of the debaters. My legal patron also may have had a 
 favorable effect in correcting any roughness contracted ia my 
 hunter's life. He was calculated to bend me in an opposite 
 direction, for he was of the old school ; quoted Chesterfield on 
 all occasions, and talked of Sir Charles Grandison, who was 
 his beau ideal. It was Sir Charles Grandison, however, Ken- 
 tuckyized. 
 
 "I had always been fond of female society. My experience, 
 however, had hitherto been among the rough daughters of the 
 backwoodsmen; and I felt an awe of young ladies iu 'store 
 clothes,' and delicately brought up. Two or three of the mar- 
 ried ladies of Bardstown, who had heard me at the debating 
 club, determined that I was a genius, and undertook to bring 
 
BABLT EXPJEBIENGES OF RALPH RINGWOOD. 139 
 
 me out. I beKeve I really improved under their hands ; became 
 quiet where I had been shy or sulky, and easy where I had 
 been impudent. 
 
 "I called to take tea one evening with one of these ladies, 
 When to my surprise, and somewhat to my confusion, I foimd 
 mth her the identical blue-eyed little beauty whom I had so 
 audaciously kissed. I was formally introduced to her, but 
 neither of us betrayed any sign of previous acquaintance, ex- 
 cept by blushing to the eyes. While tea was getting ready, 
 the lady of the house went out of the room to give some direc- 
 tions, and left us alone. 
 
 "Heavens and earth, what a situation! I would have given 
 all the pittance I was worth to have been in the deepest deU of 
 the forest. I felt the necessity of saying something in excuse 
 of my former rudeness, but I could not conjure up an idea, 
 nor utter a word. Every moment matters were growing 
 worse. I felt at one time tempted to do as I had done when 
 I robbed her of the kiss: bolt from the room, and take to 
 flight; but I was chained to the spot, for I really longed to 
 gain her good- will. 
 
 "At length I plucked up courage, on seeing that she was 
 equally confused with myself, and walking desperately up to 
 her, I exclaimed : 
 
 " 'I have been trying to muster up something to say to you, 
 but I cannot. I feel that I am in a horrible scrape. Do have 
 pity on me, and help me out of it.' 
 
 "A smile dimpled about her mouth, and played among the 
 blushes of her cheek. She looked up with a shy, but arch 
 glance of the eye, that expressed a volume of comic recollec- 
 tion; we both broke into a laugh, and fromi that moment all 
 went on well. 
 
 " A few evenings afterward I met her at a dance, and pro- 
 secuted the acquaintance. I soon became deeply attached to 
 her; paid my court regularly; and before I was nineteen years 
 of age, had engaged myself to marry her. I spoke to her 
 mother, a widow lady, to ask her consent. She seemed to 
 demur; upon which, with my customary haste, I told her 
 there would be no use in opposing the match, for if her daugh- 
 ter chose to have me, I would take her, in defiance of her 
 family, and the whole world. 
 
 "She laughed, and told me I need not give myself any un- 
 easiness; there would be no unreasonable opposition. She 
 knew my family and all about me. The only obstacle was, 
 
140 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 that I had no means of supporting a wife, and she had noth- 
 ing to give with her daughter. 
 
 "No matter; at that moment everything was bright before 
 me. I was in one of my pf nguine moods. I feared nothing, 
 doubted nothing. So it wa«? agreed that I should prosecute my 
 studies, obtain a license, and as soon as I should be fairly 
 launched in business, we would be married. 
 
 "I now prosecuted my studies with redoubled ardor, and 
 was up to my ears in law, when I received a letter from my 
 father, who had heard of me and my whereabouts. He ap- 
 plauded the course I had taken, but advised me to lay a foim- 
 dation of general knowledge, and offered to defray my expenses, 
 if I would go to college. I felt the want of a general education, 
 and was staggered with this offer. It militated somewhat 
 against the self-dependent course I had so proudly, or rather 
 conceitedly, marked out for myself, but it would enable me to 
 enter more advantageously upon my legal career. I talked 
 over the matter with the lovely girl to whom I was engaged. 
 She sided in opinion with my father, and talked so disinter- 
 estedly, yet tenderly, that if possible, I loved her more than 
 ever. I reluctantly, therefore, agreed to go to college for a 
 couple of years, though it must necessarily postpone our 
 ^mion. 
 
 "Scarcely had I formed this resolution, when her mother 
 was taken Ul, and died, leaving her without a protector. This 
 again altered aU my plans. I felt as if I could protect her. I 
 gave up all idea of collegiate studies; persuaded myself that 
 by dint of industry and application I might overcome ihe 
 i\oflciencies of education, and resolved to take out a license as 
 soon as possible.' 
 
 "That very autumn I was admitted to the bar, and within a 
 month afterward was married. We were a young couple, she 
 not much above sixteen, I not quite twenty ; and both ahnost 
 without a dollar in the world. The establishment which we 
 set up was suited to our circumstances: a log-house, with two 
 smaU rooms ; a bed, a table, a half dozen chairs, a half dozen 
 knives and forks, a half dozen spoons; everything by half 
 dozens; a Uttle delft ware; everything in a small way: we 
 were so poor, but then so happy ! 
 
 "We had not been married many days, when court was held 
 at a county town, about twenty-five nules distant. It was 
 necessary for me to go there, and put myself in the way of 
 business; but how was I to g© ? I had expended all my means 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCE'S OF RALPH RINGWOOD. 141 
 
 on our establishment; and then it was hard parting with my 
 wife so soon after marriage. However, go I must. Money 
 must be made, or we should soon have the wolf at the door. 
 I accordingly borrowed a horse, and borrowed a little cash, 
 and rode off from my door, leaving my wife standing at it, 
 and waving her hand after- me. Her last look, so sweet and 
 beaming, went to my heart. I felt as if I could go through 
 fire and water for her. 
 
 "I arrived at the county town on a cool October evening. 
 The inn was crowded, for the court was to commence on the 
 following day. I knew no one, and wondered how I, a stranger, 
 and a mere youngster, was to make my way in such a crowd, 
 and to get business. The pubUc room was thronged with the 
 idlers of the country, who gather together on such occasions. 
 .There was some drinking going forward, with much noise, and 
 a httle altercation. Just as I entered the room I saw a rough 
 bully of a fellow, who was partly intoxicated, strike an old 
 man. He came swaggering by me, and elbowed me as he 
 passed. I immediately knocked Viim down, and kicked him 
 into the street. I needed no better introduction. In a mo- 
 ment I had a dozen rough shakes of the hand, and invitations 
 to drink, and found myself quite a personage in this rough 
 assembly. 
 
 "The next morning the court opened. I took my seat 
 among the lawyers, but felt as a mere spectator, not having 
 a suit in progress or prospect, nor having any idea where busi- 
 ness was to come from. In the course of the morning a man 
 was put at the bar, charged with passing counterfeit money, 
 and was asked if he was ready for trial. He answered in the 
 negative. He had been confined in a place where there were 
 no lawyers, and had not had an opportunity of consulting any. 
 He was told to choose counsel from the lawyers present, and 
 to be ready for trial on the following day. He looked round 
 the court and selected me. I was thunder-struck. I could not 
 tell why he should make such a choice. I, a beardless young- 
 ster; impractised at the bar; perfectly unknown. I felt diffi- 
 dent yet delighted, and could have hugged the rascal. 
 
 "Before leaving the court he gave me one hundred dollars 
 in a bag as a retaining fee. I could scarcely believe my senses; 
 it seemed like a dream. The heaviness of the fee spoke but 
 lightly in favor of his innocence, but that was no affair of 
 mine. I was to be advocate, not judge nor jury. I followed 
 him to jail, and learned from him aU the particulars of his 
 
142 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 case ; from thence I went to the clerk's office and took minutes 
 of the indictment. I then examined the law on the subject, 
 and prepared my brief in my room. All this occupied me 
 until midnight, when I went to bed and tried to sleep. It was 
 all in vain. Never in my life was I more wide-awake. A host 
 of thoughts and fancies kept rushing through my mind ; the 
 shower of gold that had so expectedly fallen into my lap; the 
 idea of my poor little -vdie at home, that I was to astonish 
 with my good fortune ! But then the awful responsibility 1 
 had undertaken! — to speak for the first time in a strange 
 court; the expectations the culprit had evidently formed of 
 my talents; all these, and a crowd of similar notions, kept 
 whii-hng through my mind. I tossed about aU night, fearing 
 the morning would find me exhausted and incompetent ; in a 
 word, the day dawned on me, a miserable fellow ! 
 
 "I got up feverish and nervous. I walked out before break- 
 fast, striving to collect my thoughts, and tranquillize my feel- 
 ings. It was a bright morning ; the air was pure and frosty. 
 I bathed my forehead and my hands in a beautiful running 
 stream ; but I could not allay the fever heat that raged within. 
 I returned to breakfast, but could not eat. A single cup of 
 coffee formed my repast. It was time to go to court, and I 
 went there with a throbbing heart. I believe if it had not been 
 for the thoughts of my little wife, in her lonely log house, I 
 should have given back to the man his hundred dollars, and 
 relinquished the cause. I took my seat, looking, I am con- 
 vinced, more like a culprit than the rogue I was to defend. 
 
 "When the time came for me to speak, my heart died with- 
 in me. I rose embarrassed and dismayed, and stammered in 
 opening my cause. I went on from bad to worse, and felt as 
 if I was going down hill. Just then the public px'osecutor, a 
 man of talents, but somewhat rough in his practice, made a 
 sarcastic remark on something I had said. It was like an 
 electric spark, and ran tingling through every vein in my 
 body. In an instant my diffidence was gone. My whole spirit 
 was in arms. I answered with promptness and bitterness, for 
 I felt the cruelty of such an attack upon a novice in my situa- 
 tion. The pubUc prosecutor made a kind of apology; this, 
 from a man of his redoubted powers, was a vast concession. 
 I renewed my argument with a fearless glow; carried the case 
 through triumphantly, and the man was acquitted. 
 
 "This was the making of me. Everybody was curious to 
 tnow who this new lawyer was, that had thus suddenly risen 
 
BaIILY experiences of RALPH RING WOOD. 143 
 
 among them, and bearded the attorney-general at the very 
 outset. The story of my debut at the inn on the preceding 
 zvening, when I had knocked down a bully, and kicked him 
 out of doors for striking an old man, was circulated with 
 favorable exaggerations. Even my very beardless chin and 
 juvenile coimtenance were in my favor, for people gave me 
 far more credit than I reaUy deserved. The chance business 
 which occm's in our country courts came thronging upon me. 
 I was repeatedly employed in other causes ; and by Saturday 
 night, when the court closed, and I had paid my bill at the 
 inn, I found myself -v.ith a hundred and fifty dollars in silver, 
 three hundred dollars in notes, and a horse that I afterward 
 sold for two hundred dollars more. 
 
 " Never did miser gloat on his money with more delight. I 
 locked the door of my room ; pUed the money in a heap upon 
 the table ; walked round it ; sat with my elbows on the table, 
 ard my chin upon my hands, and gazed upon it. Was I 
 thinking of the money? No! I was thinking of my little 
 wife at home. Another sleepless night ensued; bjit what a 
 night of golden fancies, and splendid air-castles ! As soon as 
 morning dawned, I was up, momited the borrowed horse with 
 which I had come to court, and led the other which I had re- 
 ceived as a fee. AH the way I was delighting myself with the 
 thoughts of the surprise I had in store for my httle wife, for 
 both of us had expected nothing but that I should spend sll 
 the money I had borrowed, and should return in debt. 
 
 '■ Our meeting was joyous, as you may suppose: but I,played 
 the part of the Indian hunter, who, when he returns from the 
 chase, never for a time speaks of his success. She had pre- 
 pared a snug little rustic meal for me, and while it was getting 
 ready I seated myself at an old-fashioned desk in one comer, 
 and began to count over my money, and put it away. She 
 came to me before I had finished, and asked who I had col- 
 lected the money for. 
 
 " 'For myself, to be sure,' replied I, with affected coolness; 
 ' I made it at court.' 
 
 "She looked me for a moment in the face, incredulously. I 
 tried to keep my countenance, and to play Indian, but it would 
 not do. My muscles began to twitch; my feelings aU at once 
 gave way. I caught her in my arms; laughed, cried, and 
 danced- about the room, like a crazy man. From that time 
 forward, we never wanted for money. 
 
 " I had not been long in successful practice, when I was sur- 
 
144 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 prised one day by a visit from my woodland patron, old Miller. 
 The tidings of my prosperity had reached him in the wildiEBS^ 
 aess, and he had walked one hundred and fifty miles on foot 
 to see me. By that time I had improved my domestic estab- 
 lishment, and had aU things comfortable about me. He looked 
 around him with a wondering eye, at what he considered luxu- 
 ries and superfluities ; but supposed they were all right in my 
 altered circumstances. He said he did not know, upon the 
 whole, but that I had acted for tiie best. It is true, if game 
 had continued plenty, it would have been a foUy for me to quit 
 a hunter's hfe ; but hunting was pretty nigh done up in Ken- 
 tucky. The buffalo had gone to Missouri; the elk were nearly 
 gone also ; deer, too, were growing scarce ; they might last out 
 his time, as he was growing old, but they were not worth set- 
 ting up life upon. He had once lived on the borders of Vir- 
 ginia. Game grew scarce there ; he followed it up across Ken- 
 tucky, and now it was again giving him the slip ; but he was 
 too old to foUow it farther. 
 
 ' ' He remained with us three days. My wife did everything 
 in her power to make him comfortable ; but at the end of that 
 time he said he must be off again to the woods. He was tired 
 of the village, and of having so many people about him. He 
 accordingly returned to the wUdemess and to himting hfe. 
 But I fear he did not make a good end of it ; for I understand 
 that a few years before his death he married Sukey Thomas, 
 who lived at the White Oak: Eim." 
 
 THE SEMINOLES. 
 
 From the time of the chimerical cruisings of Old Ponce de 
 Leon in search of the Eountain of Youth, the avaricious expe- 
 dition of PamphUo de Narvaez ia quest of gold, and the chival- 
 rous enterprise of Hernando de Soto, to discover and conquer 
 a second Mexico, the natives of Florida have been continually 
 subjected to the invasions and encroachments of white men. 
 They have resisted them perseveringly but fruitlessly, and are 
 now battling amid swamps and morasses for the last foothold 
 of their native soil, with all the ferocity of despair. Can we 
 wonder at the bitterness of a hostility that has been handed 
 down from father to son, for upward of three centuries, and 
 
THE SEMIN0LE8. I45 
 
 exasperated by the wrongs and miseries of each succeeding 
 generation ! The very name of the savages with whom we are 
 fighting betokens their fallen and homeless condition. Formed 
 of the wrecks of once powerful tribes, and driven from their 
 ancient seats of prosperity and dominion, they are known by 
 the najAe of the Seminoles, or "Wanderers." 
 
 Bartram, who travelled through Florida in the latter part of 
 the last century, speaks of passing through a great extent of 
 ancient Indian fields, now silent and deserted, overgrown with 
 forests, orange groves, and rank vegetation, the site of the 
 ancient Alachua, the capital of a famous and powerfiil tribe, 
 who in days of old could assemble thousands at bull-play and 
 other athletic exercises "over these then happy fields and 
 green plains." "Almost every step we take," adds ho, " over 
 these fertile heights, discovers the remains and traces of 
 ancient human habitations and cultivation." 
 
 About the year 1763, when Florida was ceded by the Span- 
 iards to the English, we are told that the Indians generally 
 retired from the towns and the neighhorhood of the whites, 
 and burying themselves in the deep forests, intricate swamps 
 and hommocks, and vast savannas of the interior, devoted 
 themselves to a pastoral life, and the rearing of horses and 
 cattle. These are the people that received the name of the 
 Seminoles, or Wanderers, which they stiQ retain. 
 
 Bartram gives a pleasing picture of them at the time he vis- 
 ited them in their wilderness ; where their distance from the 
 abodes of the white man gave them a transient quiet and 
 security. " This handful of people," says he, " possesses a vast 
 territory, aU East and the greatest part of 'West Florida, 
 which being naturally cut and divided into thousands of 
 islets, knolls, and eminences, by the innumerable rivers, lakes, 
 swamps, vast savannas, and ponds, form so many secure re- 
 treats and temporary dwelHng places that effectually guard 
 them from any sudden invasions or attacks from their ene- 
 mies; and being thns a swampy, hommocky country, fur- 
 nishes such a plenty and variety of supplies for the nourish- 
 ment of varieties of animals, that I can venture to assert that 
 no part of the globe so abovmds with wild game, or creatures 
 fit for the food of man. 
 
 " Thus they enjoy a superabundance of the necessaries and 
 conveniences of life, with the security of person and property, 
 the two great concerns of mankind. The hides of deer, bears, 
 tigers, and wolyes, together with honey, wax, and other pro- 
 
146 THE CliATOjy PAI'EBS. 
 
 ductions of the country, purchase their clothing equipage and 
 domestic utensils from the wliites. They seem to be free from 
 want or desires. No cruel enemy to dread ; nothing to give 
 them disquietude, but the gradual encroachments of the white 
 people. Thus contented and undisturbed, they appear as blithe 
 and free as the birds of the air, and like them as volatile and 
 active, tuneful and vociferous. The visage, action, and deport- 
 ment of the Seminoles form the most striking picture of hap- 
 piness in this life; joy, contentment, love, and friendship, 
 without guile or affectation, seem inherent in them, or pre- 
 dominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them with but 
 
 the last breath of life They are fond of games and 
 
 gambling, and amuse themselves like children, in relating 
 extravagant stories, to cause surprise and mirth." * 
 
 The same writer gives an engaging picture of his treatment 
 by these savages : 
 
 " Soon after entering the forests, we were met in the path 
 by a small company of Indians, smiling and beckoning to us 
 long before we joined them. This was a family of Talaha- 
 sochte, who had been out on a hunt and were returning home 
 loaded with barbecued meat, hides, and honey. Their company 
 consisted of the man, his wife and children, well mounted on 
 fine horses, with a number of pack-horses. The man offered 
 us a fawn skin of honey, which I accepted, and at parting 
 presented him with some fish-hooks, sewing-needles, etc. 
 
 " On our return to camp in the evening, we were saluted by 
 a party of young Indian warriors, who had pitched their tents 
 on a green eminence near the lake, at a small distance from our 
 camp, under a little grove of oaks and palms. This company 
 consisted of seven young Seminoles, under the conduct of a 
 young prince or chief of Talahasochte, a town southward in the 
 isthmus. They were all dressed and painted with singular 
 elegance, and richly ornamented with silver plates, chains, 
 etc., after the Seminole mode, with waving plumes of feathers 
 on their crests. On our coming up to them, they arose and 
 shook hands; we alighted and sat awhile with them by their 
 cheerful fire. 
 
 " The young prince informed our chief that he was in pur- 
 suit of a young feUow who had fled from the town carrying 
 off with him one of his favorite young wives. He said, mer- 
 rily, he would have the ears of both of them before he returned. 
 
 * Bartram's Travels in North America. 
 
THE SEMIN0LE8. 147 
 
 "He was rather above the middle stature, and the most perfect 
 human figure I ever saw; pf an amiable, engaging counte- 
 nance, air, and deportment ; free and familiar in conversation, 
 yet retaiaing a becoming gracefulness and dignity. We arose, 
 took leave of them, and crossed a httle vale, covered mth a 
 charming green turf, already illuminated by the soft hght of 
 the full moon. 
 
 "Soon after joining our companions at camp, our neigh- 
 bors, the prince and his associates, paid us a visit. We treated 
 them with the best fare we had, having till this time preserved 
 our spirituous liquors. They left us with perfect cordiaUty 
 and cheerfulness, wishing us a good repose, and retired to 
 their own camp. Having a band of music with them, con- 
 sisting of a drum, flutes, and a rattle-gourd, they entertained 
 us during the night with their music, vocal and instrumental. 
 
 There is a leinguishing softness and melancholy air in the 
 Indian convivial songs, especially of ^ the amorous class, irre- 
 sistibly moving attention, and exquisitely pleasing, especially 
 in their sohtary recesses, when all nature is silent." 
 
 Travellers who* have been among them, in more recent 
 times, before they had embarked in their present desperate 
 struggle, represent them in much the same light; as leading 
 a pleasant, indolent life, in a climate that required httle 
 shelter or clothing, and where the spontaneous frmts of the 
 earth furnished subsistence without toil. A cleanly race, de- 
 lighting in bathing, passing much of their time under the 
 shade of their trees, with heaps of oranges and other fine 
 fruits for their refreshment; talking, laughing, dancing and 
 sleeping. Every chief had a fan hanging to his side, made 
 of feathers of the wild turkey, the beautiful pmk-colored 
 crane or the scarlet flamingo. With this he wovild sit and fan 
 MmseK with great stateliness, while the young people danced 
 before him. The women joined in the dances with the men, 
 excepting the war-dances. They wore strings of tortoise-shells 
 and pebbles roimd their legs, which rattled in cadence to the 
 music. They were treated with more attention among the 
 
 Seminoles than among most Indian tribes. 
 
 f 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WIIITE, THE RED, AND THE BLACK MEN. 
 
 A SEMINOLE TRADITION. 
 
 When the Floridas were erected into a territory of the 
 Unitod States, one of the earhest cares of the Governor, 
 
148 Tim CMAYON PAPERS. 
 
 "William P. Duval, was directed to the instruction and civiliza- 
 tion of the natives. For this purpose he called a meetiug 
 of the chiefs, in which he informed them of the wish of their 
 Great Father at Washington that they should have schools 
 and teachers among them, and that their children shoidd be 
 instructed like the children of white men. The chiefs listened 
 with their customary silence and decorum to a long speech, 
 setting forth the advantages that would accrue to them from 
 this measure, and when he had concluded, begged the interval 
 of a day to deliberate on it. 
 
 On the following day a solemn convocation was held, at 
 which one of the chiefs addressed the governor in the name of 
 all the rest. "My brother," said he, " we have been thinking 
 over the proposition of our Great Father at Washington, to 
 send teachers and set up schools among us. We are very 
 thankful for the interest he takes in our welfare; but after 
 much deUberation, have concluded to dechne his offer. What 
 wiU do very well for white men, will not do for red men. 
 I know you white men say we all come from the same father 
 and mother, but you are mistaken. We have a tradition 
 handed down from our forefathers, and we believe it, that the 
 Great Spirit when he undertook to make men, made the black 
 man; it was his first attempt, and pretty well for a beginning; 
 but he soon saw he had bungled ; so he determined to try his 
 hand again. He did so, aM made the red man. He hked him 
 much better than the black man, but still he was not exactly 
 what he wanted. So he tried once more, and made the white 
 man ; and then he was satisfied. You see, therefore, that you 
 were made last, and that is the reason I call you my youngest 
 brother. 
 
 ' ' When the Great Spirit had made the three men, he 
 called them together and showed them three boxes. The first 
 was filled with books, and maps, and papers ; the second with 
 bows and arrows, knives and tomahawks; the third with 
 spades, axes, hoes, and hammers. 'These, my sons,' said he, 
 ' are the means by which you are to live : choose among them 
 according to your fancy.' 
 
 . "The white man, being the favorite, had the first choice. 
 He passed by the box of working-tools without notice; but 
 when he came to the weapons for war and hunting, he stopped 
 and looked hard at them. The red man trembled, for he had 
 set his heart upon that box. The white man, however, after 
 looking upon it for a moment, passed on, and chose the box 
 
THE SEMINOLES. 149 
 
 of books and papers. The red man's turn came next; and 
 you may be sure he seized with joy upon the bows and ar- 
 rows £tnd tomahawks. As to the black man, he had no choice 
 left but to put up with the box of tools. 
 
 "From this it is clear that the Great Spirit intended the 
 white man should leam to read and write ; to understand all 
 about the moon and stars; and to make everything, even 
 rum and whiskey. That the red man should be a first-rate 
 hunter, and a mighty wai-rior, but he was not to learn any- 
 thing from books, as the Great Spirit had not given him 
 any : nor was he to make rum and whiskey, lest he should 
 Trill himself with drinking. As to the black man, as he had 
 nothing but working-tools, it was clear he was to work for 
 the white and red man, which he has continued to do. 
 
 " We must go according to the wishes of tha Great Spirit, 
 or we shall get into trouble. To know how to read and write 
 is very good for white men, but very bad for red men. It 
 makes white men better, but red men worse. Some of the 
 Creeks and Cherokees learned to read and write, and they 
 are the greatest rascals among all the Indians. They went 
 on to Washington, and said they were going to see their Great 
 Father, to talk about the good of the nation. And when 
 they got there, they all wrote upon a little piece of paper, 
 without the nation at home knowing anything about it. And 
 the first thing the nation at home knew of the matter, they 
 were called together by the Indian agent, who showed them a 
 little piece of paper, which he told them was a treaty, which 
 their brethren had made in their name, with their Great Father 
 at Washington. And as they knew not what a treaty was, he 
 held up the little piece of paper, and they looked under it, and 
 lo ! it covered a great extent of country, and they found that 
 their brethren, by knowing how to read and write, had sold 
 their houses and their lands and the graves of their fathers ; 
 and that the white man, by knowing how to read and write, 
 had gained them. Tell our Great Father at Washington, 
 therefore, that we are very sorry we cannot receive teachers 
 among us ; for reading and writing, though very good for 
 white men, is ver.y bad for the Indians." 
 
150 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 THE CONSPIEACY OF NEAMATHLA. 
 
 AS AUTHENTIC SKETCH. 
 
 In the autumn of 1823, Governor Duval, and other commis- 
 sioners on the part of the United States, concluded a treaty 
 with the chiefs and warriors of the Florida IndianSj by which 
 the latter, for certain considerations, ceded aU claims to the 
 whole territory, excepting a, district in the eastern part, to 
 which they were to remove, and within which they were to 
 eside for twenty years. Several of the chiefs signed the 
 treaty with great reluctance; but none opposed it more 
 strongly than Neamathla, principal chief of the Mickasookies, 
 a fierce and warlike people, many of them Creeks by origia, 
 who lived about the Mickasookie lake. Neamathla had always 
 been active in those depredations on the frontiers of Georgia, 
 which had brought vengeance and ruin on the Seminoles. He 
 was a remarkable man; upward of sixty years of age, abctut 
 six feet high, with a fine eye, and a strongly marked counte- 
 nance, over which he possessed great command. His hatred 
 of the white men appeared to be mixed with contempt : on bhe 
 common people he looked down with infinite scorn. He 
 seemed unwUling to acknowledge any superiority of rank or 
 dignity in Governor Duval, claiming to associate with him on 
 terms of equality, as two great chieftains. Though he had 
 been prevailed upon to sign the treaty, his heart revolted at it. 
 In one of his frank conversations with Governor Duval, he 
 observed: " This country belongs to the red man; and if I had 
 the number of warriors at my command that this nation once 
 had, I would not leave a white man on my lands. I would 
 exterminate the whole. I can say this to you, for you can 
 understand me ; you are a man ; but 1 would not say it to your 
 people. They'd cry out I was a savage, and would take my 
 life. They cannot appreciate the feelings of a man that loves 
 his country." 
 
 As Florida had but recently been erected into a territory, 
 everything as yet was in rude and simple style. The gover- 
 nor, to make himself acquainted with the Indians, and to be 
 near at hand to keep an eye upon them, fixed his residence at 
 Tallahassee, near the Fowel towns, inhabited by the Micka- 
 Bookies. His government palace for a time was a mere log 
 
THE CONSPIRACY OF NEAMATHLA. IgJ 
 
 house, and he lived on hunters' fare. The village of Neamath- 
 la was but about three miles ofE, and thither the governor oc- 
 casionally rode, to visit the old chieftain. In one of these visits 
 he found Neamathla seated in his wigwam, in the centre of 
 the village, surrounded by his warriors. The governor had 
 brought him some liquor as a present, but it mounted quickly 
 into his brain, and rendered him quite boastful and belligerent. 
 The theme ever uppermost in his mind, was the treaty with 
 the whites. "It was true," he said, "the red men had made 
 such a treaty, but the white men had not acted up to it. The 
 red men had received none of the money and the cattle that 
 had been promised them : the treaty, therefore, was at an end, 
 and they did not intend to be bound by it." 
 
 Governor Duval calmly represented to him that the time 
 appointed in the treaty for the payment and delivery of the 
 money and the cattle had not yet arrived. This the old chief- 
 tain knew full weU, but he chose, for the mom.ent, to pretend 
 ignorance. He kept on drinking and talking, his voice grow- 
 ing louder and louder, untU it resounded all over the village. 
 Ho held in his hemd a long knife, with which he had been 
 rasping tobacco; this he kept flourishing backward and for- 
 ward, as he talked, by way of giving effect to his words, 
 brandishing it at times within an inch of the governor's throat. 
 He concluded his tirade by repeating, that the country be- 
 longed to the red men, and that sooner than give it up, his 
 bones and the bones of his people should bleach upon its soil. 
 
 Duval saw that the object of all this bluster wns to see 
 whether he could be intimidated. He kept his eye, therefore, 
 fixed steadily on the chief, and the moment he concluded with 
 his menace, seized iiim by the bosom of his hunting-shirt, and 
 cUnching his other fist : 
 
 "I've heard what you have said," replied he. "You have 
 made a treaty, yet you say your bones shall bleach before 
 you comply with it. As sure as there is a sun in heaven, your 
 bones shall bleach, if you do not fulfil every article of that 
 treaty ! I'U let you know that I am first here, and will see that 
 you do your duty!" 
 
 Upon this, the old chieftain threw himself back, burst into a 
 fit of laughing, and declared that all he had said was in joke. 
 The governor suspected, however, that there was a grave 
 meaning at the bottom of this jocularity. 
 
 For two months, everything went on smoothly: the Indians 
 repaired daily to the log-cabin palace of the governor, at Talla- 
 
152 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 hassee, and appeared perfectly contented. All at once they 
 ceased their visits, and for three or four days not one ■was to 
 be seen. Governor Duval began to apprehend that some mis- 
 chief was brewing. On the evening of the fourth day a chief 
 named Yellow-Hair, a resolute, intelligent fellow, who had 
 always evinced an attachment for the governor, entered his 
 cabin about twelve o'clock at night, and informed him that 
 between four and five hundred warriors, painted and deco- 
 rated, were assembled to hold a secret war-talk at Neamathla's 
 town. He had slipped off to give intelligence, at the risk of his 
 life, and hastened back lest his absence should be discovered. 
 
 Governor Duval passed an anxious night after this intelli- 
 gence. He knew the talent and the daring character of Nea- 
 mathla; he recollected the threats he had thrown out; he 
 reflected that about eighty white families were scattered wide- 
 ly apart, over a great extent of coimtry, and might be swept 
 away at once, should the Indians, as he feared, determine to 
 clear the country. That he did not exaggerate the dangers of 
 the case, has been proved by the horrid scenes of Indian war- 
 fare that have since desolated that devoted region. After a 
 night of sleepless cogitation, Duval determined on a measure 
 suited to his prompt and resolute character. Knowing the 
 admiration of the savages for personal courage, he determined, 
 by a sudden surprise, to endeavor to overawe and check them. 
 It was hazarding much ; but where so many lives wore in jeop- 
 ardy, he felt bound to incur the hazard. 
 
 Accordingly, on the next morning, he set off on horseback, 
 attended merely by a white man, who had been reared among 
 the Seminoles, and understood their language and manners, 
 and who acted as interpreter. They struck into an Indian 
 "trail," leading to Neamathla's village. After proceeding 
 about half a mile. Governor Duval informed the interpreter 
 of the object of his expedition. The latter, though a bold man, 
 paused and remonstrated. The Indians among whom they 
 were going were among the most desperate and discontented 
 of the nation. Many of them were veteran warriors, impover- 
 ished and exasperated by defeat, and ready to set their lives at 
 any hazard. He said that if they were holding a war councU, 
 it must be with desperate intent, and it would be certain death 
 to intrude among them. 
 
 Duval made Mght of his apprehensions: he said he was 
 perfectly well acquainted with the Indian character, and 
 should certainly proceed. So saying, he rode on. When 
 
TUB CONSPIBAOT OF NEAMATHLA. 153 
 
 ■within half a mile of the village, the interpreter addressed him 
 again, in such a tremulous tone that Duval turned and looked 
 him in the face. He was deadly pale, and once more urged the 
 governor to return, as they would certainly be massacred if 
 they proceeded. 
 
 Duval repeated his determination to go on, hut advised the 
 other to return, lest his pale face should betray fear to the 
 Indians, and they might take advantage of it. The interpreter 
 rephed that he would rather die a thousand deaths than have 
 it said he had deserted his leader when in perU. 
 , Duval then told him he most translate faithfully all he 
 should say to the Indians, without softening a word. The 
 interpreter promised faithfully to do so, adding that he well 
 knew, when they were once in the town, nothing but boldness 
 could save them. 
 
 They now rode into the village, and advanced to the coimcil- 
 house. This was rather a group of four houses, forming a 
 square, in the centre of which was a great cotmcU-flre. The 
 liouses were open in front, toward the fire, and closed in the 
 rear. At each comer of the square there was an interval 
 between the houses, for ingress and egress. In these houses 
 sat the old men and the chiefs ; the young men were gathered 
 round the fire. Neamathla presided at the coimcil, elevated on 
 a higher seat than the rest. 
 
 Governor Duval entered by one of the comer intervals, and 
 rode b61dly into the centre of the square. The young men 
 made way for him; an old man who was speaking, paused in 
 the midst of his harangue. In an instant thirty or forty rifles 
 were cocked and levelled. Never had Duval heard so loud a 
 click of triggers : it seemed to strike to his heart. He gave one 
 glance at the Indians, and turned off with an air of contempt. 
 He did not dare, he says, to look again, lest it might affect 
 his nerves; and on the firmness of his nerves everything 
 depended. 
 
 The chief threw up his arm. The rifles were lowered. Duval 
 breathed more freely : he felt disposed to leap from his horse, 
 but restrained himself, and dismounted leisurely. He then 
 walked deliberately up to Neamathla, and demanded, in an 
 authoritative tone, what were his motives for holding that 
 council. The moment he made this demand, the orator sat 
 down. The chief made no reply, but hung his head in apparr 
 ent confusion. After a moment's pause, Duval proceeded: 
 
 " I am well aware of the meaning of this war-council 5 and 
 
154 THE CUATON PAPERS. 
 
 deem it my duty to warn you against prosecuting the schemes 
 you have been devising. If a single hair of a white man in 
 this country falls to the ground, I will hang you and your 
 chiefs on the trees around your council-house ! You cannot 
 pretend to withstand the power of the white men. You are in 
 the palm of the hand of your Great Father at Washington, 
 who can crush you hke an egg-sheU. You may kill me: I am 
 but one man ; but recoUect, white men are numerous as the 
 leaves on the trees. Eemember the fate of your warriors 
 whose bones are whitening in battle-fields. Eemember your 
 wives and children who perished in swamps. Do you want to 
 provoke more hostihties? Another war with the white men, 
 and there will not be a Seminole left to teU the story of his 
 race." 
 
 Seeing the effect of his words, he concluded by appointing a 
 day for the Indians to meet him at St. Marks, and give an 
 accoimt of their conduct. He then rode off, without giving 
 them time to recover from their surprise. That night he rode 
 forty miles to Apalachicola Eiver, to the tribe of the same 
 name, who were ia feud with ,the Seminoles. They promptly 
 put two hundred and fifty warriors at his disposal, whom he 
 ordered to be at St. Marks at the appointed day. He sent out 
 runners, also, and mustered one hundred of the militia to repair 
 to the same place, together with a number of regulars from the 
 army. All his arrangements were successful. 
 
 Having taken these measures, he returned to Tallahassee, to 
 the neighborhood of the conspirators, to show them that he was 
 not afraid. Here he ascertained, through YeUow-Hair, that 
 nine towns were disaffected, and had been concerned in the 
 conspiracy. He was careful to inform himself, from the same 
 source, of the names of the warriors in each of those towns who 
 were most popular, though poor, and destitute of rank and 
 command. 
 
 When the appointed day was at hand for the meeting at St. 
 Marks, Governor Duval set off with Neamathla, who was at 
 the head of eight or nine hundred warriors, but who feared to 
 venture into the fort without him. As they entered the fort, 
 and saw troops and militia drawn up there, and a force of Apa- 
 lachicola soldioi-s stationed on the opposite bank of the river, 
 they thought they were betrayed, and were about to fly ; but 
 Duval assured them they were safe, and that when the talk 
 was over, they might go home unmolested. 
 
 A grand talk was now held, in which the late conspiracy was 
 
LETTER FROM GRANADA. 155 
 
 discussed. As he had foreseen, Neatnathla and the other old 
 chiefs threw all the blame upon the young men. "Well," 
 rephed Duval, "with us white men, when we iind a man 
 incompetent to govern those under him, we put him down, and 
 appoint another in his place. Now, as you all acknowledge 
 you cannot manage your young men, we must put chiefs over 
 them who can." 
 
 So saying, he deposed Neamathla first ; appointing another 
 in his place ; and so on with all the rest : taking care to sub- 
 stitute the warriors who had been pointed out to him as poor 
 and popular; putting medals round their necks, and investing 
 them with great ceremony. The Indians were surprised and 
 delighted at finding the appointments fall upon the very men 
 they would themselves have chosen, and hailed them with 
 acclamations. The warriors thus unexpectedly elevated to 
 command, and clothed with dignity, were secured to the inter- 
 ests of the governor, and sure to keep an eye on the disaffected. 
 As to the great chief Neamathla, he left the country in disgust, 
 and retiimed to the Creek nation, who elected him a chief of 
 one of their towns. Thus by the resolute spirit and prompt 
 sagacity of one man, a dangerous conspiracy was completely 
 defeated. Governor Duval was afterward enabled to remove 
 the whole nation, through his owii personal influence, without 
 the aid of the general government. 
 
 To the Editor of the Knickerbocker. 
 
 SiE: The following letter was scribbled to a friend during 
 my sojourn in thu Alhambra, in 1828. As it presents scenes 
 and impressions noted down at the time, I venture to offer it 
 for the consideration of yovu* readers. Shoiild it prove accep- 
 table, I may from time to time give other letters, written in the 
 course of my various ramblings, and which have been kindly 
 restored to me by my friends. Tours, Gr. C. 
 
 LETTER FROM GRANADA. 
 
 Granada, 1S28. 
 
 My Dear : Religious festivals furnish, in all Catholic 
 
 coxmtries, occasions of popular pageant and recreation; but in 
 none more so than in Spain, where the great end of religion 
 
156 -^ THE CRAYON' PAPEBS. ' 
 
 seems to be to create holidays and ceremonials. For two days 
 past, Granada has been in a gay turmoil with the great annual 
 fete of Corpus Christi. This most eventful and romantic city, 
 as you well know, has ever been the rallying point of a rnoun- 
 tainous region, studded with small towns and villages. Hither, 
 during the time that Granada was the splendid capital of a 
 Moorish kingdom, the Moslem youth repaired from all points, 
 to participate in chivalrous festivities ; and hither the Spanish 
 populace at the present day throng from aU parts of the sur- 
 rounding country to attend the festivals of the church. 
 
 As the populace hke to enjoy things from the very com- 
 mencement, the stir of Corpus Christi began in Granada on the 
 preceding evening. Before dark the gates of the city were 
 thronged with the picturesque peasantry from the mountain 
 villages, and the brown laborers from the Vega, or vast fertile 
 plain. As the evening advanced, the Vivarambla thickened 
 and swarmed with a motley multitude. This is the great 
 square in the centre of the city, famous for tilts and tourneys 
 during the time of Moorish domination, and incessantly men- 
 tioned in aU the old Moorish ballads of love and chivalry. For 
 several days the hammer hacl resounded throughout this 
 square. A gallery of wood had been erected aU round it, form- 
 ing a covered way for the grand procession of Corpus Christi. 
 On this eve of the ceremonial this gallery was a fashionable 
 promenade. It was brilliantly illuminated, bands of music 
 were stationed in balconies on the four sides of the square, and 
 all the fashion and beauty of Granada, and all its population 
 that could boast a little finery of apparel, together with the 
 majos and>wayots, the beaux and belles of the villages, in their 
 gay Andalusian costumes, thronged this covered walk, anxious 
 to see and to be seen. As to the sturdy peasantry of the Vega, 
 and such of the rnountaineers as did not pretend to display, but 
 were content with hearty enjoyment, they swarmed in the 
 centre of the square ; some in groups listening to the guitar and 
 the traditional ballad; some dancing their favorite bolero; 
 some seated on the ground making a merry though frugal 
 supper; and some stretched out for their night's repose. 
 
 The gay crowd of the gallery dispersed gradually toward 
 midnight; but the centre of the square resembled the bivouac 
 of an army ; for hundreds of the peasantry, men, women, and 
 children, passed the night there, sleeping soundly on the bare 
 earth, under the open canopy of heaven. A summer's night 
 requires no shelter in this gemal cHmate; and with a great 
 
LETTER FROM OBANADA. I57 
 
 part of the hardy peasantry of Spain, a bed is a superfluity 
 ■which many of them never enjoy, and which they affect to* 
 despise. The common Spaniard spreads out his manta, or 
 mule-cloth, or wraps himself in his cloak, and hes on the 
 ground, with his saddle for a piUow. 
 
 The next morning I revisited the square at sum-ise. It was 
 stiU strewed with gi-oups of sleepers ; some were reposing from 
 the dance and revel of the evening; others had left their vil- 
 lages after work, on the preceding day, and having trudged on 
 foot the greater part of the night, were taking a sound sleep to 
 freshen them for the festivities of the day. Numbers from the 
 mountains, and the remote villages of the plain, who had set 
 out in th^ night, continued to airrive, with their wives and 
 children. AH were in high spirits; greeting each other, and 
 exchanging jokes and pleasantries. The gay tumult thickened 
 as the day advanced. Now came pouring in at the city gates, 
 and parading through the streets, the deputations from the 
 various villages, destined to swell the grand procession. These 
 village deputations were headed by their priests, bearing their 
 respective crosses and banners, and images of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin and of patron saints; all which were matters of great 
 rivalship and jealousy among the peasantry. It was like the 
 chivalrous gatherings of ancient days, when each town and 
 village sent its chiefs, and warriors, and standards, to defend 
 the capital, or grace its festivities. 
 
 At length, all these various detachments congregated into 
 one grand pageant, which slowly paraded round the Viva- 
 rambla, and through the principal streets, where every window 
 and balcony was hung with tapestry. In this procession were 
 all the religious orders, the civU and mihtary authorities, and 
 the chief people of the parishes and villages; every church and 
 convent had contributed its banners, its images, its reUques, 
 and poured forth its wealth, for the occasion. In the centre 
 of the procession walked the archbishop, under a damask can- 
 opy, and surrounded by inferior dignitaries and their depcn' 
 dants. The whole moved to the swell and cadence of numeroiis 
 bands of music, and, passing through the midst of a countless 
 yet silent multitude, proceeded onward * the cathedral. 
 
 I could not but be struck with the changes of times and cus- 
 toms, as I saw this monkish pageant passing through the 
 Vivarambla, the ancient seat of modern pomp and chivalry. 
 The contrast was indeed forced upon the mind by the decora- 
 tions of the square. The whole front of the wooden gallery 
 
158 THE CBATON PAPERS. 
 
 erected for the procession, extending several hundred feet, was 
 faced with canvas, on which some humble though patriotic 
 artist had painted, by contract, a series of the principal scenes 
 and exploits of the conquest, as recorded in chronicle and 
 romance. It is thus the romantic legends of Granada mingle 
 themselves with everything, and are kept fresh in the public 
 mind. Another great festival at Granada, answering in its 
 popular character to our Fourth of July, is El Dia de la Toma ; 
 " The Day of the Capture;" that is to say, the anniversary of 
 the capture of the city by Ferdinand and Isabella. On this 
 day all Granada is abandoned to revelry. The alarm beU on 
 the Terre de la Campana, or watch-tower of the Alhambra, 
 keeps up a clangor from niorn tiU night; and ha|)py is the 
 damsel that can ring that bell ; it is a charm to secure a hus- 
 band in the course of the year. 
 
 The sound, which can be heard over the whole Vega, and to 
 the top of the mountains, summons the peasantry to the fes- 
 tivities. Throughout the day the Alhambra is thrown open to 
 the pubhc. The halls and courts of the Moorish monarchs 
 resound with the guitar and Castanet, and gay groups, in the 
 fanciful dresses of Andalusia, perform those popular dances 
 which they have inherited from the Moors. 
 
 In the meantime a grand procession moves through the city. 
 The banner of Ferdinand and Isabella, that precious rehquo of 
 the conquest, is brought forth from its depository, and borne 
 by the Alferez Mayor, of grand standard-bearer, through the 
 principal streets. The portable camp-altar, which was carried 
 about with them in all their campaigns, is transported into the 
 cliapel royal, and placed before their sepulchre, where their 
 effigies he in monumental marble. The procession fills the 
 chapel. High mass is performed in memory of the conquest; 
 and at a certain part of the ceremony the Alferez Mayor puts 
 on his hat, and waves the standard above the tomb of the con- 
 querors. 
 
 A more whimsical memorial of the conquest is exhibited on 
 the same evening at the theatre, where a popular drama is 
 performed, entitled Ave Maria. This turns on the oft-sung 
 achievement of Hernando del Pulgar, surnamed El de las 
 Hazanas, " He of the Exploits," the favorite hero of the popu- 
 lace of Granada. 
 
 During the time that Ferdinand and Isabella besieged the 
 city, the yoimg Moorish and Spanish knights vied with each 
 other in extravagant bravados. On one occasion Hernando del 
 
LETTER FROM GRANADA. 159 
 
 Pulgar, at the head of a handful of youthful followers, made a 
 dash into Granada at the dead of night, nailed the inscription 
 of Ave Maria, with his dagger, to the gate of the principal 
 mosque, as a token of having consecrated it to the virgin, and 
 effected his retreat in safety. 
 
 While the Moorish cavahers admired this daring exploit, 
 they felt bound to revenge it. On the following day, therefore, 
 Tarfe, one of the stoutest of the iniidel warriors, paraded in 
 front of the Christian army, dragging the sacred inscription of 
 Ave Maria at his horse's tail. The cause of the Virgin was 
 eagerly vindicated by Garcilaso de la Vega, who slew the Moor 
 in single combat, and elevated the inscription of Ave Maria, in 
 devotion and triumph, at the end of his lance. 
 
 The drama founded on this exploit is prodigiously popular 
 with the common people. Although it has been acted time out 
 of mind, and the people have seen it repeatedly, it never fails 
 to draw crowds, and so completely to engross the feelings of 
 the audience, as to have ahnost the efEect on them of reality. 
 When their favorite Pulgar strides about with many a mouthy 
 speech, in the very midst of the Moorish capital, he is cheered 
 with enthusiastic bravos ; and when he naUs the tablet of Ave 
 Maria to the door of the mosque, the theatre absolutely shakes 
 with shouts and thunders of applause. On the other hand, the 
 actors who play the part of the Moors, have to bear the brunt 
 of the temporary indignation of their auditors ; and when the 
 iniidel Tarfe plucks down the tablet to tie it to his horse's tail, 
 many of the people absolutely rise in fury, and are ready to 
 jump upon the stage to revenge this insult to the Virgin. 
 
 Beside this annual festival at the capital, almost every vil- 
 lage of the Vega and the mountains has its own anniversary, 
 wherein its own deKverance from the Moorish yoke is cele- 
 brated with uncouth ceremony and rustic pomp. 
 
 On these occasions a kind of resurrection takes place of 
 ancient Spanish dresses and armor ; great two-handed swords, 
 ponderous arquebuses, with match-looks, and other weapons 
 and accoutrements, once the equipments of the village chiv- 
 alry, and treasured up from generation to generation, since 
 the time of the conquest. In these hereditary and historical 
 garbs some of the most sturdy of the villagers array themselves 
 as champions of the faith, while its ancient opponents are rep- 
 resented by another band of villagers, dressed up as Moorish 
 warriors. A tent is pitched in the public square of the village, 
 within which is an altar, and an image of the Virgin. The 
 
160 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 Spanish warriors approach to perform their devotions at this 
 shrine, but are opposed by tlie infidel Moslems, who surround 
 the tent. A mock fight succeeds, in the course of which the 
 combatants sometimes forget that they are merely playing a 
 part, and exchange dry blows of grievous weight ; the fictitious 
 Moors especially are apt to bear away pretty evident marks of 
 the pious zeal of their antagonists. The contest, however, in- 
 variably terminates in favor of the good cause. The Moors 
 are defeated and taken prisoners. The image of the Virgin, 
 rescued from thraldom, is elevated in triumph ; and a grand 
 procession succeeds, in which the Spanish conquerors figure 
 with great vain-glory and applause, and their captives are led 
 in chains, to the infinite deUght and edification of the populace. 
 These annual festivals are the delight of the villagers, who ex- 
 pend considerable sums in their celebration. In some villages 
 they are occasionally obliged to suspend them for want of 
 funds ; but when times grow better, or they have been enabled 
 to save money for the purpose, they are revived with all their 
 grotesque pomp and extravagance. 
 
 To recur to the exploit of Hernando del Pulgar. However 
 extravagant and fabulous it may seem, it is authenticated by 
 certain traditional usages, and shows the vain-glorious daring 
 that prevailed between the youthfiil warriors of both nations, 
 in that romantic war. The mosque thus consecrated to the 
 Virgin was made the cathedral of the city after the conquest; 
 and there is a painting of the Virgin beside the royal chapel, 
 which was put there by Hernando del Pulgar. The lineal rep- 
 resentative of the hare-brained cavalier has the right to this 
 day to enter the church, on certain occasions, on horseback, to 
 sit within the choir, and to put on his hat at the elevation of 
 the host, though these privileges have often been obstinately 
 contested by the clergy. 
 
 The present lir.eal representative of Hernando del Pidgar is 
 the Marquis de Salar, whom I have met occasionally in society. 
 He is a young man of agreeable appearance and manners, and 
 his bright black eyes would give indication or his inheriting 
 the fire of his ancestor. When the paintings were put up in 
 the Vivarambla, illustrating the scenes of the conquest, an old 
 gray-headed family servant of the Pulgars was so dehghted 
 with those which related to the family hero, that he absolutely 
 shed tears, and hurrying home to the Marquis, urged Tiim to 
 hasten and behold the family trophies. The sudden zeal of the 
 old man provoked the mirth of his young master ; upon which 
 
ABDEBAUMAN. 161 
 
 turning to the brother of the Marqiiis, -with that freedom 
 allowed to family servants in Spain, "Come, Seilor," cried iie, 
 "you are more grave and considerate than your brother; 
 come and see your ancestor in all his glory !" 
 
 "Within two or three years after the above letter was written, 
 the Marquis de Salar was married to the beautiful daughter of 
 
 the Count , mentioned by the author in his anecdotes of 
 
 the Alhambra. The match was very agreeable to all parties, 
 and the nuptials were celebrated with great festivity. 
 
 ABDEEAHMAN: 
 
 POTTNDEE OF THE DYNASTY OF THE OMMIADES IK SPAIK. 
 
 To the Editor of the Knickerbocker. 
 
 SiE: In the following memoir I have conformed to the facts 
 furnished by the Arabian chroniclers, as cited by the learned 
 Conde. The story of Abderahman has almost the charm of 
 romance ; but it deiives a higher interest from the heroic yet 
 gentle virtues which it illustrates, and from recording the for- 
 tunes of the founder of that splendid djmasty, which shed such 
 a lustre upon Spain during the domination of the Arabs. Ab- 
 derahman may, in some respects, be compared to our own 
 Washington. He achieved the independence of Moslem Spain, 
 freeing it from subjection to the cahphs ; he imited its jarring 
 parts under one government; he ruled over it with justice, 
 clemency, and moderation ; his whole course of conduct was 
 distinguished by wonderful forbearance and magnanimity ; and 
 when he died he left a legacy of good example and good coun- 
 sel to his successors. G. C. 
 
 "Blessed be God!" exclaims an Arabian historian; "in His 
 hands alone is tne destiny of princes. He overthrows the 
 mighty, and htunbles the haughty to the dust; and he raises 
 up the persecuted and aflfiicted from the very depths of de- 
 spair!" 
 
 The illustrious house of Omeya had swayed the sceptre at 
 Damascus for nearly a century, when a rebeUion broke out, 
 
162 THE CEATON PAPEBS. 
 
 headed by Aboul Abbas Safah, who aspired to the throne of 
 the caliphs, as being descended from Abbas, the uncle of tho 
 prophet. The rebellion was successful. Marvau, the last cahph 
 of the house of Omeya, was defeated and slain. A general 
 proscription of the Ommiades took place. Many of them fell 
 in battle ; many were treacherously slain, in places where they 
 had taken refuge; above seventy most noble and distinguished 
 were murdered at a banquet to which they had been invited, 
 and their dead bodies covered with cloths, and made to serve 
 as tables for the horrible festivity. Others were driven forth, 
 forlorn and desolate wanderers in various parts of the earth, 
 and pursued with relentless hatred; for it was the determina- 
 tion of the usurper that not one of the persecated family should 
 escape. Aboul Abbas took possession of three stately palaces, 
 and deUcious gardens, and founded the powerful dynasty of the 
 Abbassides, which, for several centuries, maintained dominion 
 in the east. 
 
 ' ' Blessed be God !" again exclaims the Arabian historian ; "it 
 was written in His eternal decrees that, notwithstanding the 
 fury of the Abbassides, the noble stock of Omeya should not be 
 destroyed. One fruitful branch remained to flourish with glory 
 and greatness in another land. " 
 
 When the sanguinary proscription of the Ommiades took 
 place, two young princes of that line, brothers, by the names 
 of Solyman and Abderahman, were spared for a time. Their 
 personal graces, noble demeanor, and winning affabdity, had 
 made them many friends, while their extreme youth rendered 
 them objects of but Uttle dread to the usurper. Their safety, 
 however, was but transient. In a Httle while the suspicions of 
 Aboul Abbas were aroused. The unfortunate Solyman fell be- 
 neath the scimitar of the executioner. His brother Abderahman 
 was warned of his danger in time. Several of his friends has- 
 tened to him, bringing him jewels, a disp^uise, and a fleet horse, 
 "The emissaries of the caliph," said they, "are in search of 
 thee ; thy brother hes weltering in his blood ; fly to the desert ! 
 There is no safety for thee in the habitations of man !" 
 
 Abderahman took the jewels, clad himself in the disguise, 
 and mounting his steed, fled for his life. As he passed, a lonely 
 fugitive, by the palaces of his ancestors, in which his family 
 had long held sway, their very walls seemed disposed to betray 
 hun, as they echoed the swift clattering of his steed. 
 
 Abandoning his native country, Syria, where he was liable 
 at each moment to be recognized and taken, he took refuge 
 
ABDEMAHMAN. Igg 
 
 among the Bedouin Arabs, a half -savage race of shepherds. His 
 youth, his inborn majesty and grace, and the sweetness and 
 aflabUity that shone forth in his azure eyes, won the hearts of 
 these wandering men. He was but twenty years of age, and 
 had been reared in the soft luxury of a palace ; but he was tail 
 and vigorous, and in a little while hardened himself so com- 
 pletely to the rustic hfe of the fields that it seemed as though 
 he had pass«d all his days in the rude simplicity of a shepherd's 
 cabin. 
 
 His enemies, however, were upon his traces, and gave him 
 but little rest. By day he scoured the plain with the Bedouins, 
 bearing in every blast the sound of pursuit, and fancying in 
 every distant cloud of dust a troop of the cahph's horsemen. 
 His night was passed in broken sleep and frequent watchings, 
 and at the earliest dawn he was the fii-st to put the bridle to his 
 steed. 
 
 Wearied by these perpetual alarms, he bade farewell to his 
 friendly Bedouins, and leaving Egypt beliind, sought a safer 
 refuge in Western Africa. The province of Barea was at that 
 time governed by Aben Habib, who had risen to ranis; and for- 
 tune imder the fostering favor of the Ommiades. "Surely," 
 thought the unhappy prince, "I shall receive kindness and 
 protection from this man; he will rejoice to show his gratitude 
 for the benefits showered upon him by my kindred." 
 
 Abderahman was young, and as yet knew Mttle of mankind. 
 None are so hostile to the victim of power as those whom he 
 has befriended. They fear being suspected of gratitude by bis 
 persecutors, and involved in his misfortunes. 
 
 The unfortunate Abderahman had halted for a few days to re- 
 pose himself among a horde of Bedouins, who had received him 
 with their characteristic hospitality. They would gather round 
 him in the evenings, to listen to his conversation, regarding 
 with wonder this gently-spoken stranger from the more refined 
 country of Egypt. The old men marvelled to find so much 
 knowledge and wisdom in such early youth, and the young 
 men, won by his frank and manly carriage, entreated him to 
 remain among them. 
 
 One night, when aU were buried in sleep, they were roused 
 by the tramp of horsemen. The Wall Aben Habib, who, like 
 all the governors of distant ports, had received orders from the 
 caliph to be on the watch for the fugitive prince, had heai-d 
 that a yoimg man, answering the description, had entered the 
 province alone, from the frontiers of Egypt, on a steed worn 
 
164 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 down by travel. He had immediately sent forth horsemen in 
 his pursuit, with orders to bring him. to him dead or alive. 
 The emissaries of the Wali had traced him to his resting-place, 
 and demanded of the Arabs whether a young man, a stranger 
 from Syria, did not sojourn among their tribe. The Bedouins 
 knew by the description that the stranger must be their guest, 
 and feared' some evil was intended him. "Such a youth," 
 said they, " hps indeed sojourned among us; but he has gone, 
 with some of our young men, to a distant valley, to hunt tfee 
 lion." The emissaries inquired the way to the plqce, and 
 hastened on to surprise their expected prey. 
 
 The Bedouins repaired to Abderahman, who was stiU sleep- 
 ing. "If thou hast aught to fear from man in power," said 
 they, "arise and fly ; for the horsemen of the Wali are in quest 
 of thee ! We have sent them off for a time on a wrong errand, 
 but they will soon return." 
 
 "Alas! whither shall I fly!" cried the unhappy prince; "my 
 enemies hunt me Uke the ostrich of the desert. They follow 
 me like the wind, and aUow me neither safety nor repose !" 
 
 Six of the bravest youths of the tribe stepped forward. "We 
 have steeds, " said they, ' ' that can outstrip the wind, and hands 
 that can hurl the javelin. We will accompany thee in thy 
 flight, and wiU fight by thy side whUe life lasts, and we have 
 weapons to wield." 
 
 Abderahman embraced them with tears of gratitude. They 
 mounted their steeds, and made for the most lonely parts of 
 the desert. By the faint light of the stars, they passed through 
 dreary wastes, and over hills of sand. The lion roared, and 
 the hyena howled unheeded, for they fled from man, more 
 cruel and relentless, when in pursuit of blood, than the savage 
 beasts of the desert. 
 
 At sunrise they paused to refresh themselves beside a scanty 
 well, smrounded by a few palm-trees. One of the young Arabs 
 chmbed a tree, and looked in every direction, but not a horse- 
 man was to be seen. 
 
 "We have outstripped pursuit," said the Bedouins; "whither 
 shall we conduct thee? Where is thy home and the land of 
 thy people?" 
 
 " Home have I none !" rephed Abderahman, mournfully, "nor 
 family, nor kindred I My native land is to me a land of de- 
 struction, and my people seek my life !" 
 
 The hearts of the youthful Bedouins were touched with com- 
 passion at these words, and they marvelled that one so young 
 
ABDERAHMAN. 165 
 
 and gentle should have suffered such great sorrow and perse- 
 cution. 
 
 Abderahman sat by the well, and mused for a time. At 
 length, breaking silence, " In the midst of Mauritania, "said he, 
 "dwells the tribe of Zeneta. My mother was of that tribe; 
 and perhaps when her son presents himself, a persecuted wan- 
 derer, at theu" door, they will not turn him. from the thresh- 
 old." 
 
 "The Zenetes," replied the Bedouins, "are among the 
 bravest and most hospitable of the people of Africa. Never 
 did the unfortunate seek refuge among them in vain, nor 
 was the stranger repulsed from their door." So they mount- 
 ed their steeds with renewed spirits, and journeyed with aU 
 speed to Tahart, the capital of the Zenetes. 
 
 When Abderahman entered the place, followed by his six 
 rustic Arabs, all wayworn and travel-stained, his noble and 
 majestic demeanor shone through the simple garb of a Bed- 
 Guia. A crowd gathered around him, as he aMghted from his 
 weary steed. Confiding in the well-known chaxacter of the 
 tribe, he no longer attempted concealment. 
 
 "You behold before you," said he, "one of the proscribed 
 house of Omeya. I am that Abderahman upon whose head a 
 price has been set, and who has been driven from land to land. 
 I come to you as my kindred. My mother was of your tribe, 
 and she told me with her dying breath that in all time of need 
 I woidd find a home and friends among the Zenetes." 
 
 The words of Abderahman went straight to the hearts of his 
 hearers. They pitied his youth and his great misfortunes, 
 while they were charmed by his frankness, and by the manly 
 graces of his person. The tribe was of a bold and generous 
 spirit, and not to be awed by the frown of power. " Evil be 
 upon us and upon our children," said they, " if we deceive 
 the trust thou hast placed in us I" 
 
 Then one of the noblest Xeques took Abderahman to his 
 house, and treated him as his own child; and the principal 
 people of the tribe strove who most should cherish him, and do 
 him honor; endeavoring to obHterate by their kindness the 
 recollection of his past misfortunes. 
 
 Abderahman had resided some time among the hospitable 
 Zenetes, when one day two strangers, of venerable appearance, 
 attended by a small retinue, arrived at Tahart. They gave 
 themselves out as merchants, and from the simple style in 
 which they travelled, excited no attention. In a little while 
 
166 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 they sought out Atderahman, and, taking him apart: 
 "Hearken," said they, "Abderahman, of the royal line of 
 Omeya ; we are ambassadors sent on the part of the principal 
 Moslems of Spain, to offer thee, not merely an asylum, for that 
 thou hast already among these brave Zenetes, but an empire ! 
 Spain is a prey to distracting factions, and can no longer exist 
 as a dopendance upon a throne too remote to watch over its 
 welfare. It needs to be independent of Asia and Africa, and 
 to be under the government of a good prince, who shall reside 
 within it, and devote himself entirely to its prosperity; a 
 prince with sufficient title to silence all rival claims, and bring 
 the warring parties into unity and peace; and at the same 
 time with sufficient ability and virtue to insure the welfare of 
 his dominions. For this purpose the eyes of aU the honorable 
 leaders in Spain have been turned to thee, as a descendant of 
 the royal line of Omeya, and an offset from the same stock as 
 our holy prophet. They have heard of thy virtues, and of thy 
 admirable constancy under misfortunes; and invite thee to 
 accept the sovereignty of one of the noblest countries in the 
 world. Thou wilt have some difficulties to encounter frorq 
 hostile men ; but thou wilt have on thy side the bravest cap 
 tains that have signalized themselves in the conquest of the 
 unbelievers." 
 
 The ambassadors ceased, and Abderahman remained for a 
 tun>' lost in wonder and admiration. "God is great!" ex- 
 claimed he, at length; " there is but one God, who is God, and 
 Mahomet is his prophet! Illustrious ambassadors, you have 
 put now life into my soul, for you have shown me something 
 to live for. In the few years that I have lived, troubles and 
 sorrows have been heaped upon my head, and I have become 
 inured to hardships and alarms. Since it is the wish of the 
 valiant Moslems of Spain, I am willing to become their leader 
 and defender, and devote myself to their cause, be it happy or 
 disastrous." 
 
 The ambassadors now cautioned him to be silent as to their 
 errand, and to depart secretly for Spain. "The seaboard of 
 Africa," said they, " swarms with your enemies, and a power- 
 ful faction in Spain would intercept you on landing, did they 
 know your name and rank, and the object of your coming. " 
 
 But Abderahman replied: " I have been cherished in adver- 
 sity by these brave Zenetes; I have been protected and hon- 
 ored by them, when a price was set upon my head, and to 
 harbor me was great peril. How can I keep my good fortune 
 
ABDBRAEMAN. J 67 
 
 from my benefactors, and desert their hospitable roofs in 
 silence? He is unworthy of friendship, who withholds confi- 
 dence from his friend." 
 
 Charmed with the generosity of his feelings, the ambassadors 
 made no opposition to his wishes. The Zenetes proved them- 
 selves worthy of his confidence. They haUed with joy the 
 great change in his fortunes. The warriors and the young 
 men pressed forward to foUow, and aid them with horse and 
 weapon; "for the honor of a noble house and family," said 
 they, "can be maintained only by lances and horsemen." In 
 a few days he set forth, with the am'Dassadors, at the head of 
 nearly a thousand horsemen, skilled in war, and exercised in 
 the desert, and a large body of infantry, armed with lances 
 The venerable Xeque, with whom he had resided, blessed him, 
 and shed tears over him at parting, as thou.c;h he had been his 
 own child ; and when the youth passed over the threshold, the 
 house was filled with lamentations. 
 
 Abderahman reached Spain in safety, and landed at Almane- 
 car, with his little band of warlike Zenetes. Spam was at that 
 time in a state of great confusion. Upward of forty years 
 had elapsed since tne conquest. The civU wars in Syria and 
 Egypt had prevented the main government at Damascus from 
 exercising control over this distant and recently acquired ter- 
 ritory. Every Moslem conunander considered the town or 
 province committed to his charge, an absohite property ; and 
 accordingly exercised the most arbitrary extortions. These 
 excesses at length became insupportable, and, at a convocation 
 of many of the principal leaders, it was determined, as a means 
 to end these dissensions, to unite all the Moslem provinces of 
 Spain under one Emir, cr General Governor. Yusuf el Fehri, 
 an ancient man, of honorable lineage, was chosen for this 
 station. He began his reign with poUcy, and endeavored to 
 conciliate all parties; but the distribution of oflaces soon 
 created powerftil enemies among the disappointed leaders. A 
 civil war was the consequence, and Spain was deluged with 
 blood. The troops of both parties burned and ravaged and 
 laid everything waste, to distress their antagonists; the vil- 
 lages were abandoned by their inhabitants, who fled to the 
 cities for refuge; /and flourishing towns disappeared from the 
 face of the earth, or remained mere heaps of rubbish and 
 ashes. At the time of the landing of Abderahman in Spain, the 
 old Emir Yusuf had obtained a signal victory. He had capr 
 tured SaragORsa, in which was Ameer ben Amru, his principal 
 
168 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 enemy, together mth bis son and secretary. Loading his pri' 
 soners with chains, and putting them on camels, he set out in 
 ' iumph for Cordova, considering himself secure in the abso-i 
 lute domination of Spain. 
 
 He had halted one day in a valley called Wadarambla, and 
 was reposing with his family in his pavUion. while his people 
 and the prisoners made a repast in the open air. In the midst 
 of his repose, his confidential adherent and general, the WaU 
 Samael, galloped into the camp covered with dust, and ex- 
 hausted with fatigue. He brought tidings of the arrival of 
 Abderahman, and that the whole sea-board was flocking to his 
 standard. Messenger after messenger came hurrying into the 
 camp, confirming the fearful tidings, and adding that this 
 descendant of the Omeyas had secretly been invited to Spain 
 by Amru and his followers. Tusuf waited not to ascertain 
 the truth of this accusation. Giving way to a transport of 
 fury, he ordered that Amru, his son and secretaiy, should 
 be cut to pieces. His commands were instantly executed. 
 "And this cruelty," says the Arabian chronicler, "lost him 
 the favor of Allah; for from that time, success deserted his 
 standard." 
 
 Abderahman had indeed been hailed with joy on his landing 
 in Spain. The old people hoped to find tranquillity under the 
 sway of one supreme chieftain, descended from their ancient 
 caliphs ; the young men were rejoiced to have a youthful war- 
 rior to lead them on to victories ; and the populace, charmed 
 with his freshness and manly beauty, his majestic yet gracious 
 and afPable demeanor, shouted : ' ' Long live Abderahman ben 
 Moavia Meramamolin of Spain !" 
 
 In a few days the youthful sovereign saw himself at the 
 head of more than twenty thousand men, from the neighbor- 
 hood of Elvira, Almeria, Malaga, Xeres, and Sidonia. Fair 
 Seville threw open its gates at his approach, and celebrated his 
 arrival with public rejoicings. He continued his march into 
 the country, vanquished one of the sons of Tusuf before the 
 gates of Cordova, and obliged him to take refuge within its 
 walls, where he held him in close siege. Hearing, however, of 
 the approach of Yusuf, the father, with a powerful army, he 
 divided his forces, and leaving ten thousand men to press the 
 siege, he hastened with the other ten to meet the coming foe. 
 
 Yusuf had indeed mustered a formidable force, from the 
 east and south of Spain, and accompanied by his veteran gene- 
 ral, Samael, came with confident boasting to drive this in- 
 
ABDEBAUMAN. 169 
 
 trader from the land. His coimdence increased on beholding 
 the small army of Abderaaman. Turning to Samael, he re- 
 peated, "With a scornful sneer, a verse from an Arabian poetess, 
 which says : 
 
 "How hard is our lotl We come, a thirsty multitude, and 
 lo ! but this cup of water to shaise among us !" 
 
 There was indeed a fearful odds. On the one side were two 
 veteran generals, grown gray in victory, with a mighty host 
 of warriors, seasoned in the wars of Spain. On the other side 
 was a mere you^h, scarce attained to manhood, with a hasty 
 levy of half -disciplined troops; bu-t the youth was a prince, 
 flushed with hope, and aspiring after fame and empire; and 
 surrounded by a devoted band o<f warriors from Africa, whose 
 example infused desperate zeal into the little army. 
 
 The encounter took place at daybreals. The impetuous valor 
 of the Zenetes carried everything before it. The cavalry of 
 Yusuf was broken, and driven back iipon the infantry, and 
 before noon the whole host was put to headlong flight. Yusuf 
 and Samael were borne along in the torrent of the fugitives, 
 raging and storming, and making ineffectual efforts to rally 
 them. They were separated widely in the confusion of the 
 flight, one taking refuge in the Algarves, the other in the 
 kingdom of Murcia. They afterward rallied, reunited their 
 forces, and made another desperate stand near Almunecar. 
 The battle was obstinate and bloody, but they were again 
 defeated, and driven, with a handful of followers, to take 
 refuge in the rugged mountains adjacent to Elvira. 
 
 The spirit of the veteran Samael gave way before these fear- 
 ful reverses. "In vain, O Yusuf .'" said he, "do we contend 
 with the prosperous star of this youthful conqueror : the will 
 of Allah be done ! Let us submit to our fate, and sue for favor- 
 able terms, while we have yet the means of capitulation. " 
 
 It was a hard trial for the proud spirit of Yusuf, that had 
 once aspired to uncontrolled sway ; but he was compelled to 
 capitulate. Abderahman was as generous as brave. He 
 granted the two gray-headed generals the most honorable con- 
 ditions, and even took the veteran Samael into favor, employ- 
 ing him, as a mark of confidence, to visit the eastern provinces 
 of Spain, and restore them to tranquillity. Yusuf, having de- 
 livered up Elvira and Granada, and compMed with other arti- 
 cles of his capitulation, was permitted to retire to Murcia, and 
 rejoin his son Muhamad. A general amnesty to all chiefs and 
 BOldiers who should yield up their strongholds, and lay down 
 
170 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 their arms, completed the triumph of Abderahmian, and brought 
 all hearts into obedience. 
 
 Thus ternainated this severe struggle for the domination of 
 Spain; and thus the illustrious family of Omeya, after having 
 been cast down and almost exterminated in the East, took new 
 root, and sprang forth prosperously in the West. 
 
 Wherever Abderahman appeared, he was received with rap- 
 turous acclamations. As he rode through the cities, the popu- 
 lace rent the air with shouts of joy ; the stately palaces were 
 crowded with spectators, eager to gain a sight of his graceful 
 form and beaming countenance; and when they beheld the 
 mingled majesty and benignity of their new monarch, and the 
 sweetness and gentleness of his whole conduct, they extoUod 
 him as something more than mortal ; as a beneficent genius, 
 sent for the happiness of Spain. 
 
 In the interval of peace which now succeeded, Abderahman 
 occupied himself in promoting the useful and elegant arts, and 
 in .introducing into, Spain the refinements of the East. Con- 
 sid sring the building and ornamenting of cities as among the 
 noblest employments of the tranquil hours of princes, he be- 
 stowed great pains upon beautifying the city of Cordova and 
 its envu'ons. He reconstructed banks and dykes, to keep the 
 Guadalquiver from overflo-\ving its borders, and. on the vast 
 terraces thus formed, he planted delightful gardens. In the 
 midst of these, he erected a lofty tower, commanding a view 
 of the vast and fruitful valley, enlivened by the windings of the 
 river. In this tower he would pas3 hours of meditation, gaz- 
 mg onthe soft and varied landscape, and innaling the bland 
 and bahny airs of that dehghtful re/^ion. At such times, his 
 thoughts would recur to the past, and the misfortunes of his 
 youth; the massacre of his family would rise to view nun-led 
 ■with tender recollections of his native country, from which he 
 was exiled. In these melancholy musings he would sit with 
 his eyes fixed upon a palm-tree which he had planted in the 
 midst of his garden. It is said to have been the first over 
 planted in Spain, and to have been the parent-stock of aU the 
 pahn-trees which grace the southern provinces of the peninsula 
 O^e heart of Abderahman yearned toward this tree; it was the 
 offsprmg of his native country, and like him, an exile. In one 
 of his moods of tenderness, he composed verses upon it, which 
 have since become famous throughout the world. The' follow- 
 ing is a rude but literal translation : 
 
 " Beauteous Palm ! thou also wert hither brought a stranger- 
 
ABDEliAUMAN. 171 
 
 but thy roots have found a kindly soil, thy head is hfted to 
 the skies, and the sweet airs of Algarve fondle and kiss thy 
 branches. 
 
 " Thou hast known, Kke me, the storms of adverse fortune. 
 Bitter tears wouldst thou shed, couldst thou feel my woes. 
 Eepeated griefs have overwhelmed me. With early tears I be- 
 dewed the palms on the banks of the Euphrates ; but neither 
 tree nor river heeded my sorrows, when driven by cruel fate, 
 and the ferocious Aboul Abbas, from the scenes of my child- 
 hood and the sweet objects of my affection. 
 
 "To thee no remembrance remains of my beloved country; 
 I, imhappyl can never recall it without tears." 
 
 The generosity of Abderahman to his vanquished foes was 
 destiaed to be abused. The veteran Yusuf, in visiting certain 
 of the cities which he had surrendered, found himself sur- 
 roimded by zealous partisans, ready to peril ILlo in his service. 
 The love ot command revived in his bosom, and he repented 
 the facihty with which he had suffered himself to be persuaded 
 to submission. Flushed with now hopes of success, he caused 
 arms to be secretly collected, and deposited in various villages, 
 piost zealous in their professions of devotion, and raising a con- 
 siderable body of troops, seized upon the castle of Almodovar. 
 The rash rebeUion was short-hved. At the first appearance of 
 an army sent by Abderahman, and commanded by Ahdehne- 
 lee, governor of Seville, the villages which had so recently pro- 
 fessed loyalty to Yusuf, hastened to declare their attachment 
 to the monarch, and to give up the concealed arms. Almodo- 
 var was soon retaken, and Yusuf, driven to the environs of 
 Lorea, was surrounded by the cavalry of Abdelmelee. The 
 veteran endeavored to cut a passage through the enemy but 
 after fighting with desperate fury, and with a force of arm in- 
 crerlible in one of bis age, he fell beneath blows from weapons 
 of all kinds, so that after the battle his body could scarcely be 
 recognized, so numerous were the wounjls. 'His head was cut 
 off and sent to Cordova, where it was placed in an iron cage, 
 ovw the gate of the city. 
 
 The old lion was dead, but his whelns survived. Yusuf had 
 Jeft three sons, who inherited his warlike spirit, and were eager 
 to revenge his death. Collecting a number of the scattered 
 adherents of their house, they surprised and seized upon To- 
 ledo, during the absence of Temam, its WaH or commander. 
 In this old warrior city, built upon a rock, and almost sur- 
 rounded by the Tagus, they set up a kind of robber holdi 
 
172 THE GRATON PAPERS. 
 
 scouring the surrounding country, levying tribute, seizing upon 
 horses, and compelling the peasantry to join their standard. 
 Every day cavalcades of horses and mules, laden with spoil, 
 with flocks of sheep and droves of cattle, came pouring over 
 the bridges on either side of the city, and thronging in at the 
 gates, the plunder of the surrounding country. Those of the 
 inhabitants who were stiU loyal to Abderahman dared not hft 
 up their voices, for men of the sword bore sway. At length 
 one day, when the sons of Yusuf , with their choicest troops, 
 were out on a maraud, the watchmen on the towers gave the 
 alarm. A troop of scattered horsemen were spurring wildly 
 toward the gates. The banners of the sons of Yusuf were 
 descried. Two of them spurred into the city, followed by a 
 handful of warriors, covered with confusion and dismay. 
 They had been encomitered and defeated by the "Wall Temam, 
 and one of the brothers had been slain. 
 
 The gates were secured in all haste, and the walls were 
 scarcely manned, when Temam appeared before them with his 
 troops, and summoned the city to surrender. A great internal 
 commotion ensued between the loyalists and the insurgents; 
 the latter, however, had weapons in their hands, and prevailed ; 
 and for several days, trusting to the strength of their rock- 
 built fortress, they set the Wali at defiance. At length some 
 of the loyal inhabitants of Toledo, who knew all its secret and 
 subterraneous passages, some of wliich, if chroniclerc may be 
 believed, have existed since the days of Hercules, if not of 
 Tubal Cain, introduced Temam and a chosen band of his war- 
 riors into the very centre of the city, where they suddenly 
 appeared as if by magic. A panic seized upon the insurgents. 
 Some sought safety in submission, some in concealment, some 
 in fhght. Casim, one of the sons of Yusuf, escaped in disguise; 
 the youngest, unai-med, was taken, and was sent captive to 
 the king, accompanied by the head of his brother, who had been 
 slain in battle. 
 
 When Abderahman beheld the youth laden with chains, he 
 remembered his own sufferings in his early days, and had com- 
 passion on him ; but, to prevent him from doing further mis- 
 chief, he imprisoned him in a tower of the wall of Cordova. 
 
 In the meantime Casim, who had escaped, managed to raise 
 another band of warriors. Spain, in all ages a guerilla coun- 
 try, prone to partisan warfare and petty maraud, was at that 
 time infested by bands of licentious troops, who had sprung 
 up in the civil contests; their only object pillage, their only 
 
ABDERAHMAN. 173 
 
 dependence the sword, and ready to flock to any new and 
 desperate standard, that promised the greatest hcense. "With 
 a ruffian force thus levied, Casim scoured the country, took 
 Sidonia by storm, and surprised Seville while in a state of 
 unsuspecting security. 
 
 Abderahman put himself at the head of his faithful Zenetes, 
 and took the field in person. By the rapidity of his move- 
 ments, the rebels were defeated, Sidonia and Seville speedily 
 retaken, and Casim was made prisoner. The generosity of 
 Abderahman was again exhibited toward this unfortunate son 
 of Tusuf . He spared his life, and sent him to be confined in a 
 tower at Toledo. 
 
 The veteran Samael had taken no part in these insurrections, 
 but had attended faithfully to the affairs intrusted to him by 
 Abderahman. The death of his old friend and colleague, 
 Yusuf, however, and the subsequent disasters of Ms family, 
 filled him ^vith despondency. Fearing the inconstancy of for- 
 tune, and the demgei-^ incident to public employ, he entreated 
 the king to be permitted to retire to his house in Seguenza, 
 and indulge a privacy and repose suited to his advanced age. 
 His prayer was granted. The veteran laid by his arms, bat- 
 tered in a thousand conflicts ; hung his sword and lance against 
 the wall, and, surrounded by a few friends, gave himself up 
 apparently to the sweets of quiet and unambitious leisure. 
 
 Who can count, however, upon the tranquil content of a 
 heart nurtured amid the storms of war and ambition ! Under 
 the ashes of this outward humihty were glowing the coals of 
 faction. In his seemingly philosophical retirement, Samael was 
 concerting with his friends new treason against Abderahman. 
 His plot was discovered ; his house was suddenly surrounded 
 by troops ; and he was conveyed to a tower at Toledo, where, 
 in the course of a few months, he died in captivity. 
 
 The magnanimity of Abderahman was again put to the 
 proof, by a new insurrection at Toledo. Hixem ben A.dra, a 
 relation of Tusuf, seized upon the Alcazar, or citadel, slew 
 several of the royal adherents of the king, hberated Casim 
 from his tower, and, siunmoning aU the banditti of the coun- 
 try, soon mustered a force of ten thousand men. Abderahman 
 was qtiickly before the walls of Toledo, with the troops of 
 Cordova and his devoted Zenetes. The rebels were brought to 
 terms, and surrendered the city on promise of general pardon, 
 which was extended even to Hixem and Casim. When the 
 chieftains saw Hixem and his principal confederates im the 
 
174 Tim CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 power of Abderahman, they advised him to put them all to 
 death. "A promise given to ■traitors and rebels," said they, 
 "is not binding, when it is to the interest of the state that it 
 should be broken." 
 
 ' ' No !" replied Abderahman, ' ' if the safety of my throne were 
 at stake, I would not break my word. " So saying, he con- 
 firmed the amnesty, and granted Htxem ben Adra a worthless 
 life, to be employed in farther treason. 
 
 Scarcely had Abderahman retnrned from this expedition, 
 when a powerful army, sent by the caliph, landed from Africa 
 on the coast of the Algarves. The commander, Aly ben 
 Mogueth, Emir of Oairvan, elevated a rich banner which he 
 had received from the hands of the caUph. Wherever he 
 went, he ordered the caliph of the East to be proclaimed by 
 sound of trumpet, denouncing Abderahman as a usurper, the 
 vagrant member of a family proscribed and execrated in aU 
 the mosques of the East. 
 
 One of the first to join his standard was Hixem ben Adra, so 
 recently pardoned by Abderahman. Ho seized upon the cita- 
 del of Toledo, and repairing to tlie camp of Aly, offered to 
 deliver the city into his hands. 
 
 Abderahman, as bold in war as he was gentle in peace, took 
 the field with his wonted promptness ; overthrew his enemies, 
 with great slaughter, drove some to the sea-coast to regain 
 their ships, and others to the mountains. The body of Aly was 
 found on the field of battle. Abderahman caused the head to 
 be struck off, and conveyed to Cairvan, where it was affixed 
 at night to a column in the public square, with this inscription: 
 "Thus Abderahman, the descendant of the Omeyas, punishes 
 the rash and arrogant." Hixem ben Adra escaped from the 
 field of battle, and excited farther troubles, but was eventually 
 captured by Abdelmolee, who ordered his head to be struck 
 off on the spot, lest he should again be spared, through the 
 wonted clemency of Abderahman. 
 
 Notwithstanding these signal triumphs, the reign of Abder- 
 ahman was disturbed by farther insurrections, and by another 
 descent from Africa, but he was victorious over them all; 
 striking the roots of his power deeper and deeper into the land. 
 Under his sway, the government of Spain became more reg- 
 tdar and consolidated, and acquired an independence of the 
 empire of the East. The caliph continued to be considered as 
 first pontiff and chief of the rehgion, but he ceased to have any 
 temporal power over Spain, 
 
ABDERAnMAN. 175 
 
 Having again an interval of peace, Abderahmcin devoted 
 himself to the education of his children. Suleiman, the eldest, 
 he appointed Wali, or governor, of Toledo; Abdallah, t'ho 
 second, was intrusted with the command of Merida ; but the 
 third son, Hixem, was the deUght of his heart, the son of 
 Howara, his favorite sultana, whom he loved throughout life 
 with the utmost tenderness. With this youth, who was full 
 of promise, he relaxed from the fatigues of government ; join- 
 ing in his youthful sports amid the delightful gardens of Cor- 
 dova, and teaching him. the gentle art of falconry, of which 
 tho king was so fond that he received the name of the Falcon 
 of Coraixi. 
 
 ■While Abderahman was thus indulging in the gentle pro- 
 pensities of his nature, mischief was secretly at wort. Muha- 
 mad, the youngest son of Yusuf , had been for many years a 
 prisoner in the tower of Cordova. Being passive and resigned, 
 his keepers relaxed their vigilance, and brought him forth 
 from his dungeon. He went groping about, however, in 
 broad dayhght, as if stiQ in tho darkness of his tower. His 
 guards watched him narrowly, less this should be a deception, 
 but were at length convinced that the long absence of light 
 had rendered him bUnd. They now permitted him to descend 
 frequently to the lower chambers of the tower, and to sleep 
 there occasionally, during the heats of summer. They even 
 allowed him to grope his way to the cistern, in quest of water 
 for his ablutions. 
 
 A year passed in this way without anything to excite sus- 
 picion. During all this time, however, the blindness of Muha- 
 madwas entirely a deception; and he was concerting a plan 
 of escape, through the aid of some friends of his father, who 
 found means to visit him occasionally. One sulfry evening 
 in midsummer, the guards had gone to bathe in the Guadal- 
 quiver, leaving Muhamad alone, in the lower chambers of the 
 tower. No sooner were they out of sight and hearing, than he 
 hastened to a window of the stair-case, leading down to the 
 cistern, lowered himself as far as his arms would reach, and 
 dropped without injury to the ground. Plunging into the 
 Guadalquiver, he swam across to a thick grove on the opposite 
 side, where his friends were waiting to receive him. Here, 
 moimting a horse which they had provided for an event of the 
 kind, he fled across the country, by solitary roads, and made 
 good his escape to the mountains of Jaen. 
 
 The guardians of the tower dreaded for some time to make 
 
176 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 known his flight to Abderahman. When at length it was told 
 to him, he exclaimed : ' ' AH is the work of eternal wisdom ; it 
 is intended to teach us that we cannot benefit the wicked with- 
 out injuring the good. The flight of tliat blind man will cause 
 much trouble and bloodshed. " 
 
 His predictions were verified. Muhamad reared the stan- 
 dard of rebellion on the mountains ; the seditious and discon- 
 tented of all kinds hastened to join it, together with soldiers 
 of fortune, or rather wandering banditti, and he had soon ax 
 thousand men, well armed, hardy in habits, and desperate 
 in character. His brother Casim also reappeared about the 
 same time in the mountains of Ronda, at the head of a daring 
 band that laid all the neighboring valleys under contribution. 
 
 Abderahman summoned his alcaydes from their various mili- 
 tary posts, to assist in driving the rebels from their mountain 
 fastnesses into the plains. It was a dangerous and protracted 
 ton, for the mountains were frightfully wild and rugged. He 
 entered them with a powerful host, driving the rebels from 
 height to height and valley to valley, and harassing them by a 
 galling fire from thousands of cross-bows. At length a deci- 
 sive battle took place near the river G-uadalemar. The rebels 
 were signally defeated; four thousand fell in action, many 
 were drowned in the river, and Muhamad, with a few horse- 
 men, escaped to the motmtains of the Algarves. Here he was 
 hunted by the alcaydes from one desolate retreat to another; 
 his few followers grew tired of sharing the disastrous fortunes 
 of a fated man ; one by one deserted him, and he himself de- 
 serted the remainder, fearing they might give him up, to pur- 
 chase their own pardon. 
 
 Lonely and disguised, he plunged into the depths of the 
 forests, or lurked in dens and caverns, like a famished wolf, 
 often casting back his thoughts with regret to the time of his 
 captivity in the gloomy tower of Cordova. Hunger at length 
 drove him to Alarcon, at the risk of being discovei'ed. Famine 
 and misery, however, had so wasted and changed him, that he 
 was not recognized. He remained nearly a year in Alarcon, 
 unnoticed and unknown, yet constantly tormenting himself 
 with the dread of discovery, and with groundless fears of the 
 vengeance of Abderahman. Death at length put an end to his 
 wretchedness. 
 
 A milder fate attended his brother Oasim. Being defeated 
 in the mountains of Murcia, he was conducted in chains to 
 Cordova. On coming into the presence of Abderahman, his 
 
ABDERAHMAN. I77 
 
 once fierce and haughty spirit, broken by distress, gave way; 
 he threw himself on the earth, kissed the dust beneath the feet 
 of the king, and implored his clemency. The benignant heart 
 of Abderahman was filled with melancholy, rather than exul- 
 tation, at beholding this -\vreck of the once haughty family of 
 Yusuf a suppliant at his feet, and suing for mere existence. 
 He thought upon the mutabihty of fortune, and felt how in- 
 secure are all her favors. He raised the unhappy Casim from 
 the earth, ordered his irons to be taken off, and, not content 
 with mere forgiveness, treated him with honor, and gave him. 
 possessions in Seville, where he might live in state conform- 
 able to the ancient dignity of his family. Won by this great 
 and persevering magnanimity, Casim ever after remained one 
 of the most devoted of his subjects. 
 
 All the enemies of Abderahman were at length subdued ; he 
 reigned undisputed sovereign of the Moslems of Spain; and so 
 benign was his government, that every one blessed the revival 
 of the filustrious hne of Omeya. He was at all times accessible 
 to the humblest of his subjects : the poor man ever found in 
 him a friend, and the oppressed a protector. He improved the 
 administration of justice ; established schools for pubhc instruc- 
 tion; encouraged poets and men of letters, and cultivated the 
 sciences. He built mosques in every city that he visited ; in- 
 culcated religion by example as well as by precept ; and cele- 
 brated all the festivals prescribed by the Koran, with the 
 utmost magniflcence. 
 
 As a monument of gratitude to God for the prosperity with 
 which he had been favored, he undertook to erect a mosque in 
 his favorite city of Cordova, that should rival in splendor the 
 great mosque of Damascus, and excel the one recently erected 
 in Bagdad by the Abbassides, the supplanters of his family. 
 
 It is said that he himself furmshed the plan for this famous 
 edifice, and even worked on it, with his own hands, one hour 
 in each day, to testify his zeal and humility in the service of 
 God, and to animate his workmen. He did not live to see it 
 completed, but it was finished according to his plans by his 
 son Hixem. When finished, it surpassed the most splendid 
 mosques of the east. It was six hundred feet in length, and 
 two hundred and fifty in breadth. Within were twenty-eight 
 aisles, crossed by nineteen, supported by a thousand and ninety- 
 three colimms of marble. There were nineteen portals, covered 
 with plates of bronze of rare workmanship. The principal 
 portal was covered with plates of gold. On the summit of the 
 
178 TEE CRAYON PAFKES. 
 
 grand cupola were three gilt balls surmounted by a golden 
 pomegranate. At night, the mosque was illuminated with 
 four thousand seven hundred lamps, and great sums were 
 expended in amber and aloes, which wei-e burned as perfumes. 
 The mosque remains to this day, shorn of its ancient splendor, 
 yet still one of the grandest Moslem monuments in Spain. 
 
 Finding himself advancing in years, Abderahman assembled 
 in his capital of Cordova the principal governors and com- 
 manders of his kingdom, and in presence of them all, with 
 great solemnity, nominated his son Hixem as the successor to 
 the throne. All present made an oath of fealty to Abderah- 
 man during his life, and to Hixem after his death. The prince 
 was younger than his brothers, Soleiman and Abdallah; but 
 he was the son of Howara, the tenderly beloved sultana of 
 Abderahman, and her influence, it is said, gained him this 
 preference. 
 
 Within a few months afterward, Abderahman fell grievously 
 sick at Merida. Finding his end approaching, he summoned 
 Hixem to his bedside: "My son," said he, "the angel of death 
 is hovering over me ; trea&Tire up, therefore, in thy heart this 
 dying counsel, which I give through the great love I bear thee. 
 Remember that all empire is from God, who gives and takes it 
 away, according to his pleasure. Since God, through his 
 divine goodness, has given us regal power and authority, let 
 us do his holy wUl, which is nothing else than to do good to all 
 men, and especially to those committed to our protection. 
 Eender equal justice, my son, to the rich and the poor, and 
 never suffer injustice to be done within thy dominion, for it is 
 the road to perdition. Be merciful and benignant to those 
 dependent upon thee. Confide the government of thy cities 
 and provinces to men of worth and experience ; punish without 
 compassion those ministers who oppress thy people with exor- 
 bitant exactions. Pay thy troops punctually; teach them to 
 feel a certainty in thy promises ; command them with gentle- 
 ness but firmness, and make them in truth the defenders of 
 ' the state, not its destroyers. Cultivate unceasingly the affec- 
 tions of thy people, for in their good- will consists the security 
 of the state, in their distrust its perU, in their hatred its cer- 
 tain ruin. Protect the husbandmen who cultivate the earth, 
 and yield us necessary sustenance; never permit theu* fields, 
 and groves, and gardens to be disturbed. In a word, act in 
 such wise that thy people may bless thee, and may enjoy, 
 under the shadow of thy wing, a secure and tranquil life. In 
 
THE. WIDOW'S OBDEAL. 179 
 
 this consista good government; if thou dost practise it, thou 
 ■wilt be happy among thy people, and renowned throughout 
 the world." 
 
 Having given this excellent counsel, the good king Abderah- 
 man blessed his son Hixem, and shortly after died ; beiag but 
 in the sixtieth year of his age. He was interred with great 
 pomp ; but the highest honors that distinguished his funeral 
 were the tears of real sorrow shed upon his grave. He left 
 behind him a ntime for valor, justice, and magnanimity, and 
 forever famous as being the foimder of the glorious line of the 
 Ommiades ia Spain. 
 
 THE WIDOW'S OEDEAL, 
 
 OR A JUDICIAL TRIAL BY COMBAT. 
 
 The world is daily growing older and wiser. Its institutions 
 vary with its years, and mark its growing wisdom ; and none 
 more so than its modes of investigating truth, and ascertaining 
 guilt or innocence. In its nonage, when man was yet a fallible 
 being, and doubted the accuracy of his own intellect, appeals 
 were made to heaven in dark and doubtful cases of atrocious 
 accusation. 
 
 The accused was required to plunge his hand in boiling oil, 
 or to walk across red-hot ploughshares, or to maintain his 
 innocence in armed fight and Usted field, in person or by 
 champion. If he passed these ordeals unscathed, he stood 
 acquitted, and the result was regarded as a verdict from on 
 high. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that, in the gallant age of 
 chiviilry, the gentler sex should have been most frequently the 
 subjects of thszQ rude trials and perilous ordeals; and that, 
 too, when assailed in their most delicate and vulnerable part — 
 their honor. 
 
 In the present very old and enlightened age of the world, 
 when the human intellect is perfectly competent to the man- 
 agement of its own concerns, and needs no special interposition 
 of heaven in its affairs, the trial by jury has superseded these 
 superhuman ordeals; and the vmanimity of twelve discordant 
 minds is necessary to constitute a verdict. Such a unanimity 
 would, at first sight, appear also to require a miracle from 
 heaven; but it is produced by a siinplfi device of human 
 
ISO THE CBAtON PAPERS. 
 
 ingenuity. The twelve jurors are locked up in their hox, there 
 to fasi; until abstinence shall have so clarified their intellects 
 that the whole jarring panel can discern the trath, and concur 
 in a unanimous decision. One point is certain, that truth is 
 one, and is immutablo— until the jurors all agree, they cannot 
 all be right. 
 
 It is not our intention, however, to discuss this great judicial 
 point, or to question the avowed superiority of the mode of 
 investigating truth adopted in this antiquated and very saga- 
 cious era. It is our object merely to exhibit to the curious 
 reader one of the most memorable cases of judicial combat we 
 find id the annals of Spain. It occurred at the bright com- 
 mencement of the reign, and in the youthful, and, as yet, 
 glorious days, of Roderick the Goth; who subsequently tar- 
 nished his fame at home by Ms misdeeds, and, finally, lost his 
 kingdom and his life on the banks of the Guadalete, in that 
 disastrous battle which gave up Spain a conquest to the Moors. 
 The following is the sf ory : 
 
 There was once upon a time a certain duke of Lorraine, who 
 was acknowledged throughout his domains to be one of the 
 wisest princes that ever hved. In fact, there was no one 
 measure adopted by him that did not astonish his privy coun- 
 sellors, and gentlemen in attendance ; and he said such witty 
 things, and made such sensible speeches, that the jaws oi his 
 high chamberlain were weU-nigh dislocated from laughing with 
 delight at one, and gaping with wonder at the other. 
 
 This very witty and exceedingly wise potentate hved for 
 half a century in single-blessedness; at length his courtiers 
 began to think it a great pity so wise and wealthy a prince 
 should not have a chUd after his own hkeness, to inherit his 
 talents and domains ; so they urged hira most respectfully to 
 marry, for the good of his estate, and the welfare of his sub- 
 jects. 
 
 He turned their advice over in his mind some four or five 
 years, and then sent forth emissaries to summon to his court 
 all the beautiful maidens in the land who were ambitious of 
 sharing a ducal crown. The court was soon crowded with 
 beauties of all styles and complexions, from among whom he 
 chose one in the earliest budding of her charms, and acknow- 
 ledged by all the gentlemen to be unparalleled for grace and 
 loveliness. The courtiers extolled the duke to the skies for 
 making such a choice, and considered it another proof of his 
 great wisdom. " The duke," said they, "is waxing a little too 
 
THE WIDOWS ORDEAL. 181 
 
 old, the damsel, on tlie other hand, is a little too young; i£ one 
 is lacking in years, the other has a superabundance; thus a 
 want on one side is balanced by the excess on the other, and 
 the result is a well-assorted marriage." 
 
 The duke, as is often the case with wise men who m.arry 
 rather late, and take damsels rather youthful to their bosoms, 
 became dotingly fond of his mfe, and very properly indulged 
 her in all things. He was, consequently, cried up by his sub- 
 jects in general, and by the ladies in particular, as a pattern 
 for husbands ; and, in the end, from the wonderful docility 
 with which he submitted to be reined and checked, acquired 
 the amiable and enviable appellation of Duke Philibert the 
 wife-ridden. 
 
 There was only one thing that disturbed the conjugal felicity 
 of this paragon of husbajids — though a considerable time 
 elapsed after his marriage, there was stiU no prospect of an 
 heir. The good duke left no means untried to propitiate 
 Heaven. He made vows and pilgrimages, he fasted and he 
 prayed, but all to no purpose. The courtiers were all aston- 
 ished at the circumstance. They could not account for it. 
 While the meanest peasant in the country had sturdy brats by 
 dozens, without putting up a prayer, the duke wore himself to 
 skin and bone with penances and fastings, yet seemed farther 
 off from his object than ever. 
 
 At length, the worthy prince feU dangerously iU, and felt his 
 end approaching. He looked sorrowfully and dubiously upon 
 his young and tender spouse, who hung over him with tears 
 and sobbings. "Alas!" said he, "tears are soon dried from 
 youthful eyes, and sorrow Mes lightly on a youthful heart. In 
 a little while thou wilt forget in the arms of another husband 
 him who has loved thee so tenderly." 
 
 "Never! never!" cried the duchess. " Never wiUI cleave 
 to another! Alas, that my lord should think me capable of 
 such inconstancy !" 
 
 The worthy and wife-ridden duke was soothed by her assur- 
 ances; for he could not brook the thought of giving her up 
 even after he should be dead. Still he wished to have some 
 pledge of her endurii^ constancy: 
 
 "Far be it from me, my dearest wife, " said he, "to control 
 thee through a long life. A year and a day of strict fidehty 
 wiU appease my troubled spirit. Promise to remain faithful to 
 my memory for a year and a day, and I will die in peace." 
 
 The duchess made a solemn vow to that effect, but the uxorif 
 
182 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 ous feelings of the duke were not yet satisfied . ' ' Safe bind, safe 
 find," thought he; so he made a will, bequeathing to her all his 
 domains, on condition of her remaining true to him for a year 
 and a day after his decease ; but, should it appear that, within 
 that time, she had in anywise lapsed from her fidehty, the in- 
 heritance should go to his nephew, the lord of a neighboring 
 territory. 
 
 Having made his wiU, the good duke died and was buried. 
 Scarcely was he in his tomb, when his nepnew came to take 
 possession, thinking, as his uncle had died without issue, the 
 domains would be devised to him of course. He was in a furi- 
 ous passion, when the will was produced, and the young widow 
 declared inheritor of the dukedom. As he was a violent, high- 
 handed man, and one of the sturdiest knights in the land, fears 
 were entertained that he might attempt to seize on the terri- 
 tories by force. He had, however, two bachelor uncles for 
 bosom counsellors, swaggering, rakehelly old cavaliers, who, 
 having led loose and riotous Hves, prided themselves upon 
 knowing the world, and being deeply experienced in human 
 nature. "Prithee, man, be of good cheer," said they, "the 
 duchess is a young and buxom widow. She has just buried 
 our brother, who, God rest his soul ! was somewhat too much 
 given to praying and fasting, and kept his pretty wife always 
 tied to his girdle. She is now hke a bird from a cage. Think 
 you she wOl keep her vow? Pooh, pooh— impossible ! Take 
 our words for it — we know mankind, and, above all, woman- 
 kind. She cannot hold out for such a length of time; it is not 
 in womanhood— it is not in widowhood— we know it, and that's 
 enough. Keep a sharp look-out upon the widow, therefore, 
 and within the twelvemonth you will catch her tripping— and 
 then the dukedom is your own." 
 
 The nephew was pleased with this counsel, and immediately 
 placed spies round the duchess, and bribed several of her ser- 
 vants to keep watch upon her, so that she could not take a 
 single step, even from one apartment of her palace to another, 
 without being observed. Never was young and beautiful 
 widow exposed to so terrible an ordeal. 
 
 The duchess was aware of the watch thus kept upon her. 
 Though confident of her own rectitude, she knew that it is not 
 enough for a woman to be virtuous -she must be above the 
 reach of slander. For the whole term of her probation, there- 
 fore, she proclaimed a strict non-intercourse with the other 
 Bex. She had females for cabinet ministers and chamberlains 
 
THE WIDOW'S ORDEAL. 183 
 
 through whom she transacted all her public and private con- 
 cerns ; and it is said that never were the affairs of the duke- 
 dom so adroitly administered. 
 
 All males were rigorously excluded from the palace; she 
 never went out of its precincts, and whenever she moved about 
 its courts and gardens, she surrounded herself with a body- 
 guard of young maids of honor, commanded by dames re- 
 nowned for discretion. She slept in a bed without curtains, 
 placed in the centre of a room illuminated by innumerable wax 
 tapers. Four ancient spinsters, virtuous as Virginia, perfect 
 dragons of watchfulness, who only slept during the daytime, 
 kept vigils throughout the night, seated in the four corners of 
 the room on stools without backs or arms, and with seats cut 
 in checkers of the hardest wood, to keep them from dozing. 
 
 Thus wisely and warily did the young duchess conauct her- 
 self for twelve long months, and slander almost bit her tongue 
 off in despiair, at finding no room even for a surmise. Never 
 was ordeal more burden some, or more enduringly sustained. 
 
 The year passed away. The last, odd day arrived, and a long, 
 long day it was. It was the twenty-first of Jvine, the longest 
 day in the year. It seemed as if it would never come to an 
 end. A thousand times did the duchess and her ladies watch 
 the sim from the windows of the palace, as he slowly climbed 
 the vault of heaven, and seemed stUl more slowly to roll down. 
 They could not help expressing their wonder, now and then, why 
 the duke should have ta^ed this supemiwnerary day to the 
 end of the year, as if three hundred and sixty-five days were 
 not sufficient to try and task the fidelity of any woman. It is 
 the last grain that turns the scale — ^the last drop that overflows 
 the goblet— and the last moment of delay that exuausts the 
 patience. By the time the sun sank oelow the horizon, the 
 duchess was in a fidget that passed all bounds, and, though 
 several hours were yet to pass before the day regularly expired, 
 she could not have remained those hours in durance to gain a 
 royal crown, much less a ducal coronet. So she gave orders, 
 and her palfrey, magnificently caparisoned, was brought into 
 the court-yard of the castle, with palfreys for aU her ladies in 
 attendance. In this way she sallied forth, just as the sun had 
 gone down. It was a mission of piety— a pilgrim cavalcade to 
 a convent at the foot of a neighboring mountain— to return 
 thanks to the blessed Virgin, for having sustained her through 
 this fearful ordeal. 
 
 The orisons performed, the duchess and her ladies returned. 
 
184 . TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 ambling gently along the border of a forest. It was about that 
 mellow hour of twilight when night and day are mingled, and 
 all objects are indistinct. Suddenly, some monstrous animal 
 sprang from out a thicket, with fearful bowlings. The female 
 body-guard was thrown into confusion, and fled different ways. 
 It was some time before they recovered from their panic, and 
 gathered once more together ; but the duchess was not to be 
 found. The greatest anxiety was felt for her safety. The 
 hazy mist of twilight had prevented their distinguishing per- 
 fectly the animal which had affrighted them. Some thought 
 it a wolf, others a bear, others a wHd man of the woods. For 
 upwards of an hour did they beleaguer the forest, without 
 daring to venture in, and were on the point ot giving up the 
 duchess as torn to pieces and darou-red, when, to their great joy, 
 they beheld her advancing in the gloom, supported by a stately 
 cavalier. 
 
 He was a stranger knight, whom nobody knew. It was 
 impossible to distinguish his countenance in the dark ; but all 
 the ladies agreed that he was of noble presence and captivating 
 address. He had rescued the duchess from the very fang^ of 
 the monster, which, he assured the ladies, was neither a wolf, 
 nor a bear, nor yet a wild man of the woods, but a veritable 
 fiery dragon, a species of monster peculiarly hostile to beautiful 
 females in the days of chivalry, and which all the efforts of 
 knight-errantry had not been able to extirpate. 
 
 The ladies crossed themselves when they heard of the danger 
 from which they had escaped, and could not enough admire 
 the gallantry of the cavalier. The duchess would fain have 
 prevailed on her deliverer to accompany her to her court ; but 
 he had no time to spare, being a knight-errant, who had many 
 adventures on nand, and many distressed damsels and afflicted 
 widows to rescue and reheve in various parts of the country. 
 Taking a respectful leave, therefore, he pursued his wayfaiing, 
 and the duchess and her train returned to the palace. Through- 
 out the whole way, the ladies were unwearied in chanting the 
 praises of the stranger knight, nay, many of them would will- 
 ingly have incurred the danger of the dragon to have enjoj'ed 
 the happy deliverance of the duchess. As to the latter, she 
 rode pensively along, biit said nothing. 
 
 No sooner was the adventure of the wood made public, than 
 a whirlwind was raised about the ears of the beautiful duchess. 
 The blustering nephew of the deceased duke went about, armed 
 to the teeth- with a. swaggering uncJe at each shoulder, ready 
 
TEE WIDOWS ORDEAL. 
 
 185 
 
 to back him, and swore the duchess had forfeited her domain. 
 It was in vain that she called all the saints, and angels, and her 
 ladies in attendance iato the bargain, to witness that she had 
 passed a year and a day of immaculate fidehty. One fatal 
 hour remained to be accounted for ; and into the space of one 
 little hour sins enough may be conjured up by evil tongues, to 
 blast the fame of a whole life of virtue. 
 
 The two graceless uncles, who had seen the world, were ever 
 ready to bolster the matter through, and as they were brawny, 
 broad-shouldered warriors, and veterans in brawl as well as 
 debauch, they had great sway with the multitude. II any one 
 pretended to assert the innocence of the duchess, they inter- 
 rupted him with a loud ha 1 ha ! of derision. " A pretty story, 
 truly," would they cry, "about a wolf and a dragon, aaid a 
 young widow rescued in the dark by a sturdy varlet who dares 
 not show his face in the dayhght. You may tell that to those 
 who do not know human nature, for our parts we know the 
 sex, and that's enough." 
 
 If, however, the other repeated his assertion, they would 
 suddenly knit their brows, swell, look big, and put their hands 
 upon their swords. As few people hke to fight in a cause that 
 does not touch their own interests, the nephew and the uncles 
 were suffered to have their way, and swagger uncontradicted. 
 
 The matter was at length referred to a tribunal, composed of 
 all the dignitaries oc the dukedom, and many and repeated 
 consultations were held. The character of the duchess through- 
 out the year was as bright and spotless as the moon in a cloud- 
 less night; one fatal hour of darkness alone intervened to 
 "eclipse its brightness. Finding human sagacity incapable of 
 dispelling the mystery, it was determined to leave the question 
 to heaven ; or in other words, to decide it by the ordeal of the 
 sword— a sage tribunal in the age of chivalry. The nephew 
 and two bully uncles were to maintain their accusation in 
 listed combat, and six months were allowed to the duchess to 
 provide herself with three champions, to meet them in the 
 field. Should she fail in this, or should her champions be 
 vanquished, her honor would be considered as attainted, her 
 fidehty as forfeit, and her dukedom would go to the nephew, 
 as a matter of right. 
 
 With this determination the duchess was fain to comply. 
 Proclamations were accordingly made, and heralds sent to 
 various parts; but day after day, week after week, and month 
 after month, elapsed, without any champion appearing to assert 
 
186 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 her loyalty throughout that darksome hour. The fair wido-vr 
 was reduced to despair, when tidings reached her of grand 
 tournaments to be held at Toledo, in celebration of the nup- 
 tials of Don Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings, with the 
 Morisco princess ExUona. As a last resort, the duchess re- 
 paired to the Spanish coiirt, to implore the gallantry of its 
 assembled chivalry. 
 
 The ancient city of Toledo was a scene of gorgeous revelry 
 on the event of the royal nuptials. The youthful king, brave, 
 ardent, and magnificent, and his lovely bride, beaming with 
 all the radiant beauty of the East, were hailed with shouts and 
 acclamations whenever they appeared. 
 
 Their nobles vied with each other in the luxury of their 
 attire, their prancing steeds, and splendid retinues; and the 
 haughty dames of the court appeared in a blaze of jewels. 
 
 In the midst of all this pageantry, the beautiful, but afflicted 
 Duchess of Lorraine made her approach to the throne. She 
 was dressed in black, and closely veiled ; four duennas of the 
 inost staid and severe aspect, and six beautiful demoiselles, 
 formed her female attendants. She was guarded by several 
 very ancient, withered, and gray headed cavaliers; and her 
 train was borne by one of the most deformed and diminutive 
 dwarfs in existence; 
 
 Advancing to the foot of the throne, she knelt down, and, 
 throwing up her veil, revealed a countenance so beautiful that 
 half the courtiers present were ready to renounce wives and 
 mistresses, and devote themselves to her service; but when 
 she made known that she came in quest of champions to 
 defend her fame, every eavaher pressed forward to offer his' 
 arm and sword, without inquiring into the "merits of the case; 
 for it seemed clear that so beauteous a lady could have done 
 nothing but what was right ; and that, at any rate, she ought 
 to be championed in following the bent of her humors, whether 
 right or wrong. 
 
 Encouraged by such gallant zeal, the duchess suffered her- 
 self to be raised from the ground, and related the whole story 
 of her distress. When she concluded, the king remained for 
 some time silent, charmed by the music of her voice. At 
 length: "As I hope for salvation, most beautiful duchess," 
 said he, "were I not a sovereign king, and bomid in duty to 
 my kingdom, I myself would put lance in rest to vindicate 
 your cause; as it is, I here give full permission to my knights, 
 and promise lists and a fair field, and that the contest shall 
 
TBE WIDOWS OIWISAL. 187 
 
 take place before the walls of Toledo, in presence of my 
 assembled court. " 
 
 As soon as the pleasure of the king was known, there was a 
 strife among the cavaliers present, for the honor of the contest. 
 It was decided by lot, and the successful candidates were 
 objects of great envy, for ever.y one was ambitious of finding 
 favor in the eyes of the beautiful widow. 
 
 Mssivos were sent, summoning the nephew and his two 
 imcles to Toledo, to maintain their accusation, and a day was 
 appointed for the combat. When the day arrived, aU Toledo 
 was in commotion at an early hour. The lists had been pre- 
 pared in the usual place, just without the walls, at the foot of 
 the rugged rocks on which the city is built, and on that beauti- 
 ful meadow along the Tagus, known by the name of the king's 
 garden. The populace had ah-eady assembled, each one eager 
 to secure a favorable place ; the balconies were fiUed with tiie 
 ladies of the court, clad in their richest attire, and bands of 
 youthful knights, splendidly armed and decorated with their 
 ladies' devices, were managing their superbly caparisoned 
 steeds about the field. The king at length came forth in state, 
 accompanied by the queen Exilona. They took their seats in 
 a raised balcony, under a canopy of rich damask; and, at 
 sight of them, the people rent the air with acclamations. 
 
 The nephew and his uncles now rode into the field, armed 
 cap-a-pie, and followed by a train of cavaliers of their own 
 roystering cast, great swearers and carousers, arrant swash- 
 bucklers, with clanking armor and jingling spurs. When the 
 people of Toledo beheld the vaunting and discourteous appear- 
 ance of these knights, they were more anxious than ever for 
 the success of the gentle duchess; but, at the same time, the 
 sturdy and stalwart frames of these warriors, showed that 
 whoever won the victory from them, must do it at the cost of 
 many a bitter blow. 
 
 As the nephew and his riotous crew rode in at one side of the 
 field, the fair widow appeared at the other, with her suite of 
 grave grayheaded courtiers, her ancient duennas and dainty 
 demoiselles, and the httle dwarf toiling along under the weight 
 of her train. Every one made way for her as she passed, and 
 blessed her beautiful face, and prayed for success to her cause. 
 She took her seat in a lower balcony, not far from the sover- 
 eign; and her pale face, set off by her mourning weeds, was as 
 the moon shining forth from among the clouds of night. 
 
 The trumpets sounded for the combat. The warriors were 
 
188 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 just entering the lists, when a stranger knight, armed in pano- 
 ply, and followed by two pages and an esquire, came galloping 
 into the field, and, riding up to the royal balcony, claimed the 
 combat as a matter of right. 
 
 "In me," cried he, "behold the cavaher who had the happi- 
 ness to rescue the beautiful duchess from the peril of the forest, 
 and the misfortune to bring on her this grievous calumny. It 
 was but I'Bcently, in the course of my errantry, that tidings of 
 her wrongs have reached my ears, and I have urged hither at 
 all speed, to stand forth in her vindication." 
 
 No sooner did the duchess hear the accents of the knight 
 than she recognized his voice, and joined her prayers with his 
 that he might enter the lists. The difficulty was, to determine 
 which of the three champions already appointed should yield 
 his place, each insisting on the honor of the combat. The 
 stranger knight would have settled the point, by taking the 
 whole contest upon himself; but this the other knights would 
 not permit. It was at length determined, as before, by lot, and 
 the cavaher who lost the chance retired murmuring and dis- 
 consolate. 
 
 The trumpets again sounded — ^the lists were opened. The 
 arrogant nephew and his two drawcansir imcles appeared so 
 sompletely cased in steel, that they and their steeds were hke 
 moving masses of iron. When they understood the stranger 
 knight to be the same that had rescued the duchess from her 
 peril, they greeted him with the most boisterous derision: 
 
 "O ho! sir Knight of the Dragon," said they, "you who pre- 
 tend to champion fair widows in the dark, come on, and vindi- 
 cate your deeds of darkness in the open day." 
 
 The only reply of the cavalier was to put lance in rest, and 
 brace himself for the encounter. Needless is it to relate the 
 particulars of a battle, which was like so many hundred com- 
 bats that have been said and sung in prose and verse. Who is 
 there but must have foreseen the event of a contest, where 
 Heaven had to decide on the guilt or innocence of the most 
 beautiful and immaculate of widows? 
 
 The sagacious reader, deeply read in this kind of judicial 
 combats, can imagine the encounter of the graceless nephew 
 and the stranger knight. He sees their concussion, man to 
 man, and horse to horse, in mid career, and sir Graceless 
 hurled to the ground, and slain. He wiU not wonder that the 
 assailants of the brawny uncles were less successful in their 
 rude encounter; but he will picture to hunself the stout 
 
THE CREOLE VILLAGE. 189 
 
 Btmnger spvirring to their rescue, in the very critical moment ; 
 he will see him transfixing one with his lance, and cleaving 
 the other to the chine with a back stroke of his sword, thus 
 leaving the trio of accusers dead upon the field, and estabhsh- 
 iag the immaculate fldehty of the duchess, and her title to 
 the dukedom, beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
 
 The air rang with acclamations; nothing was heard but 
 praises of the beauty and virtue of the duchess, and of the 
 prowess of the stranger knight; but the public joy was stiU 
 more increased when the champion raised his visor, and re- 
 vealed the countenance of one of the bravest cavahers of Spain, 
 reno'svned for his gallantry in the service of the sex, and yirho 
 had been round the world in quest of sunilar adventures. 
 
 That worthy knight, however, was severely wounded, and 
 remained for a long time Ul of his wounds. The lovely 
 duchess, grateful for having twice owed her protection to his 
 arm, attended him daily during his illness; and finally re- 
 warded his gallantry with her hand. 
 
 The king would fain have had the knight estabhsh his title 
 to such high advancement by farther aeeds of arms ; but his 
 courtiers declared that he already merited the lady, by thus 
 vindicating her fame and fortune in a deadly combat to ou- 
 trance; and the lady herself hinted that she was perfectly 
 satisfied of his prowess in arms, from the proofs she had re- 
 ceived in his achievement in the forest. 
 
 Their nuptials were celebrated with great magnificence. 
 The present husband of the duchess did not pray and fast like 
 his predecessor, Philibert the wife-ridden ; yet he found greater 
 favor in the eyes of Heaven, for their union was blessed with 
 a numerous progeny — the daughters chaste and beauteous as 
 their mother ; the sons stout and valiant as their sire, and re- 
 nowned, like him, for reheving disconsolate damsels and deso- 
 lated widows. 
 
 THE CEEOLE VILLAGE: 
 
 A SKETCH FROM A STEAMBOAT. 
 First Published in 1837. 
 
 In travelling about our motley country, I am often reminded 
 of Arioato's account of the moon, in which the good paladin 
 
190 THE CRATON PAPSmS. 
 
 Astolpho found everything garnered up that had been lost qj^ , 
 earth. So I am apt to imagine, that many things lost in th|s i 
 old world, are treasured up in the new; navmg been handed 
 down from generation to generation, since tne eany days efl 
 the colomes. A European antiquary, therefore, curious in M« 
 researches after the ancient and aimost obliterated customs 
 and usages of his country, would do well to put himself upon 
 the track of some early band of emigrants, follow them across 
 the Atlantic, and rummage among their descendants on our 
 shores. 
 
 In the phraseology of New England might be found many an 
 old English provincial phrase, long since obsolete in the parent 
 country; with some quaint relics of the roundheads; while 
 Virginia cherishes peculiarities characteristic of the days of 
 Elizabeth and Sir Walter Ealcigh. 
 
 In the same way the sturdy yeomanry of New Jersey and 
 Pennsylvania keep up many usages fading away in ancient 
 Germany; while many an honest, broad-bottomed custom, 
 nearly extinct in venerable Holland, may be found flourishing 
 in pristine vigor and luxuriance in. Dutch villages, on the banks 
 of the Mohawk and the Hudson. 
 
 In no part of our country, however, are the customs and 
 peculiarities, imported from the old world by the earlier 
 settlers, kept up with more fidelity than in the little, poverty- 
 stricken villages of Spanish and French origin, which border 
 the rivers of ancient Louisiana. Their population is generally 
 made up of the descendants of those nations, married and 
 interwoven togetner, and occasionally crossed with a shght 
 dash of the Indian. The French character, however, floats on 
 top, as, from its buoyant qualities, it is sure to do, whenever it 
 forms a particle, however small, of an intermixture. 
 
 In these serene and dilapidated villages, art and nature stand 
 still, and the world forgets to turn round. The revolutions 
 that distract other parts of this mutable planet, reach not here, 
 or pass over without leaving any trace. The forttmate inhabi- 
 tants have none of that public spirit which extends its cares 
 beyond its horizon, and imports trouble and perplexity from 
 all quarters in newspapers. In fact, newspapers are almost 
 unknown in these villages, and as French is the current lan- 
 guage, the inhabitants have httle community of opinion with 
 their republican neighbors. They retain, therefore, their old 
 habits of passive obedience to the decrees of government, as 
 though they still lived under the absolute swa.y of colonial 
 
TEE CREOLE VILLAGE. J9| 
 
 "coinmaiidants, instead of being part and parcel of the sovereign 
 people, and having a voice in pubhc legislation. 
 
 A few aged men, who have grown gray on their hereditary 
 acres, and are of the good old colonial stock, exert a patriar- 
 chal sway in all matters of public and private import; their 
 opinions are considered oracular, and their word is'law. 
 
 The inhabitants, moreover, have none of that eagerness for 
 gain and rage for improvement which keep our people continu- 
 ally on the move, and our country towns incessantly in a state 
 of transition. There the magic phrases, "town lots," "water 
 privileges," "railroads," and other comprehensive and soul- 
 stirring words from the speculator's vocabulary, are never 
 heard. The residents dwell in the houses buUt by their fore- 
 fathers, without thinking of enlarging or modernizing them, 
 or puUing them down and turning them into granite stores. 
 The trees, tmder which they have been born and have played 
 in infancy, flourish undisturbed; though, by cutting them 
 down, they might open new streets, and put money in their 
 pockets. In a word, the almighty dollar, that great object of 
 universal devotion throughout oiu" land, seems to have no 
 genuine devotees in these pecuhar villages ; and unless some of 
 its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and 
 other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabi- 
 tants may remain in their present state of contented poverty. 
 
 In descending one of our great Western rivers in a steam- 
 boat, I met with two worthies from one of these villages, who 
 had been on a distant excursion, the longest they had ever 
 made, as they seldom ventured far from home. One was the 
 great man, or Grand Seigneur, of the village ; not that he en- 
 joyed any legal privileges or power there, everything of the 
 kind having been done ajvay when the province was ceded by 
 France to the United States. His sway over his neighbors was 
 merely one of custom and convention, out of deference to his 
 family. Beside, he was worth full fifty thousand dollars, an 
 amount almost equal, in the imaginations of the villagers, to 
 the treasures of King Solom.on. 
 
 This very substantial old gentleman, though of the fourth or 
 fifth generation in this country, retained the true Galhccfea- 
 ture and deportment, and reminded me of one of those provin- 
 cial potentates that are to be met with in the remote parts of 
 France. He was of a large frame, a ginger-bread complexion, 
 stronc features, eyes that stood out like glass knobs, and a 
 prominent nose, which he frequently regaled from a gold 
 
192 TEE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 snuff-box, and occasionally blew, with a colored handker 
 chief, until it sounded like a trumpet. 
 
 He was attended by an old negro, as black as ebony, with aim 
 huge mouth, in a continual grin ; evidently a privilCodd and 
 favorite servant, who had grown up and grown old with him. 
 He was dressed in Creole stylo — with white jacket and trou- 
 sers, a stiff shirt collar, that threatened to cut off his ears, a 
 bright Madras handkerchief tied round his head, and large 
 gold ear-rings. He was the politest negro I met with ia a 
 Western tour ; and that ia saying a great deal, for, exceptiag 
 the Indians, the negroes are the most gentlemanlike person- 
 ages to be met with in those parts. It is true, they differ from 
 the Indians in being a httlo extra pohte and compUmentaix 
 He was also one of the merriest ; and here, too, the negroes, 
 however we may deplore their unhappy condition, have the 
 advantage of their masters. The whites are, in general, too 
 free and prosperous to be merry. The cares of maintaining 
 their rights and liberties, adding to their wealth, and making 
 presidents, engross all their thoughts, and dry up aU the mois- 
 ture of their souls. If you hear a broad, hearty, devil-may- 
 care laugh, be assured it is a negro's. 
 
 Beside this African domestic, the seigneur of the viUage had 
 another no less cherished and privileged attendant. This was 
 a huge dog, of the mastiff breed, with, a deep, hanging mouth, 
 and a look of surly gi-avity. He walked about the cabin with 
 the air of a dog perfectly at home, and who had paid for his 
 passage. At dinner time he took his seat beside his master, 
 giving him a glance now and then out of a comer of his eye, 
 which bespoke perfect confidence that he would not be forgot- 
 ten. Nor was he — every now and then a huge morsel would 
 be thrown to him, peradventure the half -picked leg of a fowl, 
 which he would receive with a snap like the springing of a 
 steel-trap -one gulp, and aU was down ; and a glance of the eye 
 told his master that he was ready for another consignment. 
 
 The other village worthy, travelling in company -with the 
 seigneur, was of a totally different stamp. Small, thin, and 
 weazen-faced, as Frenchmen are apt to be represented in cari- 
 cature, with a bright, squirrel-like eye, and a gold ring in his 
 ear. His dress was flimsy, and sat loosely on his frame, and 
 he had altogether the look of one with but little coin in his 
 pocket. Yet, though one of the poorest, I was assured he was 
 one of the merriest and most popular personages in his native 
 village. 
 
THE CREOLE VILLAGE. 193 
 
 Compere Martin, as he was commonly called, was the facto- 
 timi of the place — sportsman, school-master, and land-sur- 
 veyor. He coiild sing, dance, and, above aU, play on the fid- 
 dle, an invaluable accompUshment ia an old French Creole 
 village, for the inhabitants have a hereditary love for balls 
 and fetes ; if they work but little, they dance a great deal, and 
 a fiddle is the joy of their heart. 
 
 What had sent Compere Martin travelling with the Grand 
 Seigneur I could not learn; he evidently looked up to him with 
 great deference, and was assiduous in rendering him petty at- 
 tentions ; from which I concluded that he lived at home upon 
 the crumbs which fell from his table. He was gayest when 
 out of his sight; and had his song and his joke when forward, 
 among th«; 4eclr :)assengers; but altogether Compere Martin 
 was out of his element on board of a steamboat. He was quite 
 another being, I am told, when at home in his own village. 
 
 like his opulent fellow-traveller, he too had his canine fol- 
 lower and retainer — and one suited to his different fortunes — 
 one of the civilest, most unoffending little dogs in the world. 
 Unlike the lordly mastiff, he seemed to think he had no right 
 on board of the steamboat; if you did but look hard at him, he 
 would throw himself upon his back, and lift up his legs, as if 
 imploring mercy. 
 
 At table he took his seat a httle distance from his master; 
 not with the bluff, confident air of the mastiff, but quietly and 
 diflSdently, his head ou one side, with one ear dubiously 
 slouched, the other hopefully cocked up; his under teeth 
 projecting beyond his black nose, and his eye wistfully fol- 
 lowing each morsel that went into his master's mouth. 
 
 If Compere Martin now and then should venture to abstract 
 a morsel from his plate to give to his humble companion, it 
 was edifying to see with what diffidence the exemplary little 
 animal would take hold of it, with the very tip of his teeth, as 
 if he would almost rather not, or was fearful of taking too 
 great a hberty. And then with what decoram would he eat 
 it ! How many efforts would he make in swallowing it, as i£ 
 it stuck in his throat; with what daintiness would he lick his 
 hps; and then with what an air of thankfulness would he re- 
 sume his seat, with his teeth once more projecting beyond his 
 nose, and an eye of humble expectation fixed upon his master. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when the steamboat stopped at 
 the village which was the residence of these worthies. It stood 
 on the high bank of the river, and bore traces of having been a 
 
194 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 2 
 
 Ai 
 
 frontier trading post. There were the remains of stockad^ 
 that once protected it from the Indians, and the houses were 
 in the ancient Spanish and French colonial taste, the place 
 having been successively under the domination of both those 
 nations prior to the cession of Louisiana to the United States. 
 
 The arrival of the seig-neur of fifty thousand doUars, and 
 his humble companion, Compere Martin, had evidently been 
 looked forward to as an event in the village. STumbers of 
 men, women, and children, white, yeUow, and black, were 
 collected on the river bank ; most of them clad in old-fash- 
 ioned French garments, and their heads decorated with col- 
 ored handkerchiefs, or white night-caps. The moment the 
 steamboat came within sight and hearing, there was a waving 
 of handkerchiefs, and a screamiag and bawling of salutations, 
 and feUcitations, that baflae all description. 
 
 The old gentleman of fifty thousand dollars was received by 
 a train of relatives, and friends, and children, and grandchil- 
 dren, whom he kissed on each cheek, and who formed a pro- 
 cession in his rear, with a legion of domestics, of all ages, fol- 
 lowing him to a large, old-fashioned French house, that domi- 
 neered over the village. 
 
 His black valet-de-chambre, in white jacket and trousers, and 
 gold ear-rings, was met on the shore by a boon, though rustic 
 companion, a taU negro feUow, with a long, good-humored face, 
 and the profile of a horse, which stood out from beneath a nar- 
 row-rimmed straw hat, stuck on the back of his head. The ex- 
 plosions of laughter of these two varlets, on meeting and ex- 
 changing compliments, were enough to electrify the country 
 rotmd. 
 
 The most hearty reception, however, was that given to Com- 
 pere Martin. Everybody, young and old, hailed him before 
 he got to land. Everybody had a joke for Compere Martin, 
 and Compere Martin had a joke for everybody. Even his little 
 dog appeared, to partake of his popularity, and to be caressed 
 by every hand. Indeed, he was quite a different animal the 
 moment he touched the land. Here he was at home; here 
 he was of consequence. He barked, he leapea, he frisked about 
 his old friends, and then would skim round the place in a wide 
 circle, as if mad. 
 
 I traced Compere Martin and his httle dog to their home. It 
 was an old ruinous Spanish house, of large dimensions, with 
 verandas overshadowed by ancient elms. The house had pro- 
 bably been th^ residence, in old times, of the Spanish com- 
 
THE CREOLE VILLAGE. igg 
 
 maadant. In one wing of this crazy, but aristocratical abode, 
 was nestled the family of my fellow-traveller; for poor devila 
 are apt to be magnificently clad and lodged, in the cast-oft 
 clothes and abandoned palaces of the great and wealthy. 
 
 The arrival of Compere Martin was welcomed by a legion of 
 women, children, and mongrel curs ; and, as poverty and gay- 
 ety generally go hand in hand among the French and their 
 descendants, the crazy mansion soon resounded with loud gossip 
 and light-hearted laughter. 
 
 As the steamboat paused a short time at the village, I took 
 occasion to stroll about the place. Most of the houses were in 
 the French taste, with casements and rickety verandas, but 
 most of them in flimsy and ruinous condition. All the wagons, 
 ploughs, and other utensils about the place fv^ere of ancient and 
 inconvenient Gallic construction, such as had been brought 
 from France in the primitive days of the colony. The very 
 looks of the people reminded me of the villages of France. 
 
 From one of the houses came the hum of a spinning wheel, 
 accompanied by a scrap of an old French chanson, which I 
 have heard many a time among the peasantry of Languedoc, 
 doubtless a traditional song, brought over by the first French 
 emigrants, and handed down from generation to generation. 
 
 Half a dozen young lasses emerged from the adjacent dwell- 
 ings, reminding me, by their light step and gay costume, of 
 senes in ancient France, where taste in dress comes natural to 
 every class of females. The trim bodice and colored petticoat, 
 and little apron, with its pockets to receive the hands when in 
 an attitude for conversation; the colored kerchief wound taste- 
 fully round the head, with a coquettish knot perking above one 
 ear; and the neat slipper and tight drawn stocking, with its 
 braid of narrow ribbon embracing the ankle where it peeps 
 from its mysterious curtain. It is from this ambush that Cupid 
 sends his most inciting arrows. 
 
 While I was musing upon the recollections thus accidentally 
 summoned up, I heard the sound of a fiddle from the mansion 
 of Compere Martin, the signal, no doubt, for a joyous gather- 
 ing. I was disposed to txu-n my steps thither, and witness the 
 festivities of one of the very few villages I had met ^^dth in 
 my wide tour, that was yet poor enough to be merry; but the 
 bell of the steamboat summoned me to re-embark. 
 
 As we swept away from the shore, I cast back a wistful eye 
 upon the moss-grown roofs and ancient elms of the viQage, 
 and prayed that the inhabitants might long retain their happy 
 
196 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 ignorance, their absence of all enterprise and improvement, 
 their respect for the fiddle, and their contempt for the almighty 
 doUar.* I fear, however, my prayer is doomed to be of no 
 avail. In a little while the steamboat whirled me to an 
 American town, just springing into bustling and prosperous 
 existence. 
 
 The surroimding forest had been laid out in town lots; frames 
 of wooden buildings were rising from among stumps and 
 burnt trees. The place already boasted a court-house, a jaU, 
 and two banks, all built of pine boards, on the model of Gre- 
 cian temples. There were rival hotels, rival churches, and 
 rival newspapers ; together with the usual number of judges, 
 and generals, and governors; not to speak of doctors by the 
 dozen, and lawyers»by the score. 
 
 The place, I was told, was in an astonishing career of im- 
 provement, with a canal and two railroads in embryo. Lots 
 doubled in price every week ; every body was speculating in 
 land; every body was rich; and every body was growing 
 richer. The community, however, was torn to pieces by new 
 doctrines in religion and in political economy; there were 
 camp meetings, and agrarian meetings; and an election was 
 at hand, which, it was expected, would throw the whole coun- 
 try into a paroxysm. 
 
 Alas! with such an enterprising neighbour, what is to become 
 of the poor little Creole village 1 
 
 A CONTENTED MAN. 
 
 In the garden of the Tmleries there is a sunny comer under 
 the wall of a terrace which fronts the south. Along the waU is a 
 range of benches commanding a view of the walks and avenues 
 of the garden. This genial nook is a place of great resort in 
 the latter part of autumn, and in fine days in winter, as it 
 seems to retain the flavor of departed summer. On a calm, 
 bright morning it is quite alive with nursery-maids and their 
 
 * This phrase, used for tlie first time in this sltetoh, has since passed into curreuJ! 
 circulation, and by some has been questioned as savoring of irreverence. T1)0 
 author, therefore, owes it to his ortliodoxy to declare that no irreverence Tras 
 Intended even to the dollar itself; which he is aware is daily becoming more and 
 more an object of worship. 
 
.-i VUNTENTED MAN. 197 
 
 playful little charges. Hither also resort a number of ancient 
 ladies and gentlemen, who, -with the laudable thrift in small 
 plpasures and small expenses for which the French are to be 
 noted, come here to enjoy sunshine and save firewood. Here 
 may often be seen some cavalier of the old school, when the 
 sunbeams have warmed his blood into something like a glow, 
 fluttering about like a frost-bitten moth before the fire, put- 
 ting forth a feeble show of gallantry among the antiquated 
 dames, and now and then eyeing the buxom nursery-maids 
 with what might almost be mistaken for an air of libertinism. 
 
 Among the habitual frequenters of this place I had often 
 remarked an old gentleman, whose dress was decidedly anti- 
 revolutional. He wore the three-cornered cocked hat of the 
 ancien regime ; his hair was frizzed over each ear into ailes 
 de pigeon, a style s-trongly savouring of Bourbonism ; and a 
 queue stuck out behind, the loyalty of which was not to be 
 disputed. His dress, though ancient, had an air of decayed 
 gentility, and I observed that he took his snuff out of an 
 degant though oldrfashioned gold box. He appeared to be the 
 most popular man on the walk. He had a compliment for 
 every old lady, he kissed every child, and he patted every 
 little dog on the head ; for children and little dogs are very 
 important members of society in France. I must observe, 
 however, that he seldom kissed a child without, at the same 
 time, pinching the nursery-maid's cheek ; a Frenchman of the 
 old school never forgets his devoirs to the sex. 
 
 I had taken a liking to this old gentleman. There was an 
 habitual expression of benevolence in his face which I have 
 very frequently remarked in these relics of the pohter days of 
 France. The constant interchange of those thousand little 
 courtesies which imperceptibly sweeten life have a happy 
 efEect upon the features, and spread a mellow evening charm 
 over the wrinkles of old age. 
 
 Where there is a favorable predisposition one soon forms a 
 kind of tacit intimacy by often meeting on the same walks. 
 Once or twice I acconimodated him with a bench, after which 
 we touched hats on passing each other; at length we got so far 
 as to' take a pinch of snuff together out of his box, which is 
 equivalent to eating salt together in the East; from that time 
 our acquaintance was established. 
 
 I now became his frequent companion in his morning prome- 
 nades, and derived much amusement from his good-hiunored 
 : remarks on men and manners. One morning, as we were 
 
198 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 strolling through an alley of the Tuileries, with the autumnal 
 breeze whirling the yellow leaves about our path, my com- 
 panion fell into a pecuHarly communicative vein, and gave me 
 several particulars of his history. He had once been wealthy, 
 and possessed of a fine estate in the country and a noble hotel 
 in Paris; but the revolution, which effected so many disas- 
 trous changes, stripped him of everything. He was secretly 
 denounced by his own steward during a sanguinary period of 
 the revolution, and a number of the bloodhounds of the Con- 
 vention were sent to arrest him. He received private intelli- 
 gence of their approach in time to effect hi§ escape. He landed 
 in England without money or friends, but considered himself 
 singularly fortunate in having his head upon his shoulders; 
 several of his neighbors having been guillotined as a punish- 
 ment for being rich. 
 
 When he reached London he had but a louis in his pocket, 
 and no prospect of getting another. Te ate a solitary dinner 
 of beefsteak, and was almost poisoned by port wine, which 
 from its color he had mistaken for claret. The dingy look of 
 the chop-house, and of the little mahogany- colored box- in 
 which he ate his dinner, contrasted sadly with the gay saloons 
 of Paris. Everything looked gloomy and disheartening. Pov- 
 erty stared him in the face ; he turned over the few shillings 
 he had of change; did not know what was to become of him; 
 and — went to the theatre ! 
 
 He took his seat in the pit, listened attentively to a tragedy 
 oi which he did not understand a word, and which seemed 
 maxie up of fighting, and stabbing, and scene-shifting, and 
 began to feel his spirits sinking within him ; when, casting his 
 eyes into the orchestra, what was his surprise to recognize an 
 old friend and neighbor in the very act of extorting music 
 from a huge violoncello. 
 
 As soon as the evening's performance was over he tapped his 
 friend on the shoulder ; they kissed each other on each cheek, 
 and the musician took him home, and shared his lodgings 
 with him. He had learned music as an accompiishment ; by 
 his friend's advice he now turned to it as a means of support. 
 He procured a violin, offered himself for the orchestra, was 
 received, and again considered himself one of the most fortu- 
 nate men upon earth. 
 
 Here therefore he lived for many years during the ascen^ 
 dancy of the terrible Napoleon. He found several emigrants 
 living, like himself, by the exercise of their talents. They 
 
A CONTENTED MAN. 199 
 
 associated together, talked of France and of old times, and 
 endeavored to keep up a semblance of Parisian ILEe in the 
 centre of London. 
 
 They dined at a miserable cheap French restaurant in the 
 neighborhood of Leicester-square, where they were served with 
 a caricature of French cookery. They took their prorhenado 
 in St. James's Park, and endeavored to fancy it the Tmleries ; 
 in short, they made shift to accommodate themselves to every- 
 thing but an English Sunday. Indeed the old gentleman 
 seemed to have nothing to say against the English, whom he 
 affirmed to be braves gens; and he mingled so much among 
 them that at the end of twenty years he could speak their 
 language almost well enough to be imderstood. 
 
 The downfall of Napoleon was another epoch in his Ufe. He 
 had considered himself a fortunate man to make his escape 
 penniless out of France, and he considered himself fortunate 
 to be able to return penniless into it. It is true that he found 
 his Parisian hotel had passed through several hands during 
 the vicissitudes of the times, so as to be beyond the reach of 
 recovery; but then he had been noticed benignantly by gov- 
 ernment, and had a pension of several hundred francs, upon 
 which, with careful management, he Hved independently, and, 
 as iax as I could judge, happily. 
 
 As his once splendid hotel was now occupied as a hdtel 
 garni, he hired a small chamber in the attic ; it was but, as he 
 said, changing his bedroom up two pair of stairs — ^he was still 
 in. his own house. His room was decorated with pictures of 
 several beauties of former times, with whom he professed to 
 have been on favorable terms: among them was a favorite 
 opera-dancer; who had been the admiration of Paris at the 
 breaking out of the revolution. She had been a protegee of 
 my friend, and one of the few of his youthful favorites who 
 had survived the lapse of time and its various vicissitudes. 
 They had renewed their acquaiatance, and she now and then 
 visited him; but the beautiful Psyche, once the fashion of the 
 day and the idol of the parterre, was now a shrivelled, little 
 old woman, warped in the back, and with a hooked nose. 
 
 The old gentleman was a devout attendant upon levees ; he 
 was most zealous in his loyalty, and coidd not speak of the 
 royal family without a burst of enthusiasm, for he stiU felt 
 towards them as his companions in exile. As to his poverty 
 he made light of it, and indeed had a good-humored way of 
 consoling himself for every cross and privation. If he had 
 
200 THE CRAYON PAPERS. 
 
 lost his chateau in the country, he had half a dozen royal 
 palaces, as it were, at his command. He had Versailles and 
 St. Cloud for his country resorts, and the shady alleys of the 
 Tuileries, and the Luxembourg for his town recreation. Thus 
 all his promenades and relaxations were magnificent, yet 
 cost nothing. 
 
 When I walk through these fine gardens, said he, I have only 
 to fancy myself the owner of them, and they are mine. All 
 these gay crowds are my visitors, and I defy the grand seignior 
 himself to display a greater variety of beauty. Nay, what is 
 better, I have not the trouble of entertaining them. My estate 
 is a perfect Sans Souci, where every one does as he pleases, and 
 no one troubles the owner. AU Paris is my theatre, and pre- 
 sents me with a continual spectacle. I have a table spread for 
 me iu every street, and thousands of waiters ready to fly at my 
 bidding. When my servants have waited upon me I pay them, 
 discharge them, and there's an end ; I have no fears of their 
 wronging or pilfering me when my back is turned. Upon the 
 whole, said the old gentleman, with a smile of infinite good- 
 humor, when I think upon the various risks I have run, and 
 the manner ia which I have escaped them ; when I recollect aU 
 that I have suffered, and consider all that I at present enjoy, 1 
 cannot but IooIj upon myself as a man of singular good fortune. 
 
 Such was the brief history of this practical philosopher, and 
 it is a picture of many a Frenchman ruined by the revolution. 
 The French appear to have a greater facihty than most men in 
 accommodating themselves to the reverses of life, and of ex- 
 tracting honey out of the bitter things of this world. The first 
 shock of calamity is apt to overwhelm them, but when it is 
 once past, their natural buoyancy of feeling soon bring'S them 
 to the surface. This may be caUed the result of levity of 
 character, but it answers the end of reconciling us to misfor- 
 tune, and if it be not true philosophy, it is something almost as 
 efficacious. Ever since I have heard the story of my httle 
 Frenchman, I have treasured it up in my heart ; and I thank 
 my stars I have at length found what I had long considered as 
 not to be found on earth — a contented man. 
 
 P.S. There is no calculating on human happiness. Since 
 writing the foregoing, the law of indenmity has been passed, 
 and my friend restored to a great part of his fortune. I was 
 absent from Paris at the time, but on my return hastened to 
 congratulate him. I found him magnificently lodged on the 
 
A CONTEIs'TED MAN. 201 
 
 first floor of his hotel. I was ushered, by a servant in livery, 
 through splendid saloons, to a cabinet richly furnished, where 
 I found my little Frenchman reclining on a couch. He received 
 me with his usual cordiaUty ; hut I saw the gayety and benevo- 
 lence of his countenance had fled; he had an eye fuU of care 
 and anxiety. 
 
 I congratulated him on his good fortune. " Good fortune?" 
 echoed he ; " bah ! I have been plundered of a princely fortune, 
 and they give me a pittance as an indemnity." 
 
 Alas ! I found my late poor and contented friend one of the 
 richest and most miserable men in Paris. Instead of rejoicing 
 in the ample competency restored to him, he is daily repining 
 at the superfluity withheld. He no longer wanders in happy 
 idleness about Paris, but is a repining attendant in the ante- 
 chambers of ministers. His loyalty has evaporated with his 
 gayety ; he screws his mouth when the Bourbons are mentioned, 
 and even shrugs his shoulders when he hears the praises of the 
 king. In a word, he is one of the many philosophers undone 
 by the law of indemnity, and his case is desperate, for I doubt 
 whether even another reverse of fortune, which should restore 
 him. to poverty, could make him again a happy man. 
 
SALMAGUNDI 
 
 BV 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY, 
 
 Publishers. 
 
TROWS 
 PRINTING AND BOQKBINPINQ COMPANY^ 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 No. PAOK 
 
 I. Satueday, Jancart24, 1807 5 
 
 Publisher's Notice. Shakespeare Gallery, New York 6 
 
 From the Elbow-Chair of Launcelot Langstaff , Esq 7 
 
 Theatrics — ContainiDg the Quintessence of Modern Criticism. By William 
 
 Wizard, Esq 12 
 
 New York Assembly. By Anthony Evergreen, Gent 14 
 
 n. Wednesday, February 4, 1807. — From the Elbow-Chair of Launcelot Lang- 
 
 staft. Esq 18 
 
 Mr. Wilson's Concert. By Anthony Erergreen, Gent ... 23 
 
 Cockloft Family 24 
 
 To Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. 27 
 
 Advertisement 29 
 
 in. Friday, February 13, 1807.— From my Elbow-Chair 31 
 
 Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Kahn, Captain of a Ketch, to Asem 
 Hacchem, Principal Slave-Driver to his Highness, the Bashaw of 
 
 Tripoli 33 
 
 Fashions. By Anthony Evergreen, Gent 36 
 
 Proclamation from the Mill of Pindar Cockloft, Esq 41 
 
 ^. Tuesday, February 24, 1807.— From my Elbow-Chair 44 
 
 Memorandums for a Tour to be entitled, "The Stranger in New Jersey; 
 
 or, Cockney Travelling. " By Jeremy Cockloft, the Younger 46 
 
 V. Saturday, March 7, 1807. — From my Elbow-Chair 51 
 
 Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan to Abdallah Eb'n Al Eahab, 
 surnamed the Snorer, Military Sentinel at the Gate of his Highness's 
 
 Palace 5] 
 
 By Anthony Evergreen, Gent 59 
 
 To the Ladies. From the Mill of Pindar Cockloft, Esq 68 
 
 VI. Friday, March 20, 1807.— From my Elbow-Chair 66 
 
 Theatrics. By William Wizard, Esq 74 
 
 VII. Saturday, April 4, 1807.— Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan, to 
 
 Asem Hacchem, Principal Slave-Driver to his Highness, the Bashaw 
 
 of Tripoli 80 
 
 From the Mill of Pindar Cockloft, Esq. Notes by William Wizard, Esq ... 87 
 
 Vni. Saturday, April 18, 1807.— By Anthony Evergreen, Gent 91 
 
 On Style. By William Wizard, Esq 97 
 
 To Correspondents 108 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 No. PAO»| 
 
 DC. Satubdav, Apkil 25, 1807.— From my Elbow- Chair 109 
 
 From my Elbow-Chair 110 
 
 Letter from Mustapha Eub-A-Dub Keli Khan, Captain of a Ketch, to Asem 
 Hacohem, Principal Slave-Driver to his Highness, the Bashaw of 
 
 Tripoli Ill 
 
 From the Mill of Puidar Cockloft, Esq 117 
 
 X. Saturday, Mat 16, 1807.— From my Elbow-Chau- 188 
 
 To Lamicelot Langstaff , Esq 183 
 
 VOLUME n. 
 
 Note ' 129 
 
 XI. Tuesday, June 3, 1807. — Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan, Cap- 
 
 tain of a Ketch, to Asem Hacohem, Principal Slave-Driver to his High- 
 ness, the Bashaw of Tripoli 1 131 
 
 From my Elbow-Chair. Mine Uncle John 138 
 
 Xn. Saturday, June 27, 1807.— From my Elbow-Chair 144 
 
 The Stranger at Home ; or, A Tour in Broadway. By Jeremy Cockloft, 
 
 the Younger 160 
 
 From my Elbow-Chair ]56 
 
 From the Mill of Pindar Cockloft, Esq 157 
 
 Xin. Friday, August 14, ]807.—From my Elbow-Chair 161 
 
 Flans for Defending our Harbor. By WiUiam Wizard, Esq 164 
 
 From my Elbow Chair. A Eetrospect; or, " What you Will" 169 
 
 To Readers and Correspondents 177 
 
 XTV. Saturday, September 16, 1S07.— Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli 
 Khan to Asem Hacohem, Principal Slave-Driver to his Highness, the 
 
 Bashaw of Tripol i . . , 1 79 
 
 Cockloft Hall. By Launcelot Langstaff, Esq 186 
 
 Theatrical Intelligence. By William Wizard, Esq 193 
 
 XV. Thursday, October 1, 1807.— Sketches from Nature. By Anthony Ever- 
 
 green, Gent 197 
 
 On Greatness. By Launcelot Langstaff, Esq ». 208 
 
 XVI. Thursday. October 15, 1807.— Style at Ballston. By William Wizard, Esq. 809 
 Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan, to Asem Hacchem, Princi- 
 pal Slave-Driver to his Highness, the Bashaw of Tripoli 214 
 
 XVH. Wednesday, November 11, 1807. — Autumnal Reflections. By Launcelot 
 
 Langstaff, Esq 821 
 
 By Launcelot Langstaff, Esq 225 
 
 Chap. CIX.— Of the Chronicles of the Renowned and Ancient City of 
 Gotham 828 
 
 XVIII. Tuesday, November 24, 1807.— The Little Man in Black. By Launcelot 
 
 Langstaff, Esq 834 
 
 Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan, to Asem Hacchem, Principal 
 Slave-Driver to his Highness, the Bashaw of Tripoli 240 
 
 XIX. Thursday, December 31, 1807.- From my Elbow-Chalr 246 
 
 Letter from Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan to Muley Helim al Raggi, 
 
 sumamed the Agreeable Ragamuffin, chief Mounte-bank and BufEa- 
 
 dancer to his Highness 247 
 
 By Anthony Evergreen, Gent 2.54 
 
 Tea: A Poem 859 
 
 XX. Monday, January 35, 1808.— From my Elbow Chair 263 
 
 To the Ladies. By Anthony Evergreen, Gent 269 
 
 Farewell 274 
 
SALMAGUNDI 
 
 VOLUME FIRST. 
 
 NO. 1.-SATUEDAY, JANUAEY 24, 1807. 
 
 As every body knows, or ought to know, what a Salmagundi 
 is, we shall spare ourselves the trouble of an explanation— be- 
 sides, we despise trouble as we do every thing that is low and 
 mean; and hold the man who would incur it unnecessarily, as 
 an object worthy our highest pity and conterapt. Neither wiU 
 we puzzle our heads to give an account of ourselves, for two 
 reasons; first, because it is nobody's business; secondly, be- 
 cause if it were, we do not hold ourselves bound to attend to 
 any body's business but our own; and even that we take the 
 liberty of neglecting when it siiits our inclination. To these 
 we might add a third, that very few men can give a tolerable 
 account of themselves, let them try ever so hard ; but tkis rea- 
 son, we candidly avow, would not hold good with ourselves. 
 
 There are, however, two or three pieces of information which 
 we bestow gratis on the pubhc, chiefly because it suits our own 
 pleasure and convenience that they should be known, and 
 partly because we do not wish that there should be any ill will 
 between us at the commencement of our acquaintance. 
 
 Our intention is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, 
 correct the town, and castigate the age; this is an arduous 
 task, and, therefore, we undertake it with confidence. Wo in- 
 tend for this purpose to present a strikiag picture of the town ; 
 and as every body is anxious to see his own phiz on canvas, 
 however stupid or ugly it may be, we have no doubt but the 
 Vhole town will flock to our exhibition. Our picture win 
 necessarily include a vast variety of figures: and should any 
 gentleman or lady be displeased with the inveterate truth of 
 
6 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 ttieir likenesses, they may ease their spleen by laughing at 
 those of their neighbours — this being what ive understand by 
 
 POETICAi JUSTICE. 
 
 Like all true and able editors, we consider ourselves infalli- 
 ble, and, therefore, with the customary diffidence of our breth- 
 ren of the quUl, we shall take the liberty of interfering in all 
 matters either of a public or private nature. We are critics, 
 amateurs, dilettanti, and cognoscenti; and as we know "by 
 the pricking of our thumbs," that every opinion which we may 
 advance in either of those characters will be correct, we are 
 determined, though it may be questioned, contradicted, or even 
 controverted, yet it shall never be revoked. 
 
 We beg the pubUc particularly to understand that we solicit 
 no patronage. We are determined, on the contrary, that the 
 patronage shall be entirely on our side. We have nothing to 
 do with the pecuniary concerns of the paper ; its success will 
 yield us neither pride nor profit — ^nor will its failure occasion 
 to us either loss or mortification. We advise the public, there- 
 fore, to purchase our numbers merely for their own sakes:— if 
 they do not, let them settle the affair with their consciences 
 and posterity. 
 
 To conclude, we invite aU editors of newspapers and literary 
 journals to praise us heartily in advance, as we assure them 
 that we intend to deserve their praises. To our next-door 
 neighbour " Town," we hold out a hand of amity, declaring to 
 him that, after ours, his paper will stand the best chance for 
 immortality. We proffer an exchange of civilities; he shall 
 furnish us with notices of epic poems and tobacco:— and we in 
 return will enrich him with original speculations on all manner 
 of subjects; together with "the rummaging of my grandfath- 
 er's mahogany chest of drawers," "the life and amours of 
 mine uncle John," "anecdotes of the Cockloft family," and 
 learned quotations from that unheard-of writer of fohos, 
 LinJcum Fidelius. 
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTICE. 
 
 This work will be published and sold by D. Longworth. It 
 win be printed on hot prest vellum paper, as that is held in 
 highest estimation for buckling up young ladies' hair— a pur- 
 pose to which similar works are usually appropriated ; it will 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 7 
 
 "be a small, neat duodecimo size, so that when enough numbers 
 axe written, it may form, a volume sufficiently portable to be 
 carried in old ladies' pockets and young ladies' work-bags. 
 
 As the above work will not come out at stated periods, notice 
 will be given when another number wiU be pubhshed. The 
 price will depend on the size of the mmaber, and must be paid 
 on delivery. The pubhsher professes the same sublime con- 
 tempt for money as his avithors. The Mberal. patronage be- 
 stowed by his discerniag feUow-citizens on various works of 
 taste which he has published, has left him no inclination to 
 ask for further favours at their hands ; and be pubUshes this 
 work in the m.ere hope of requiting their bounty.* 
 
 FEOM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF LAUNCELOT LANG- 
 STAFF, ESQ. 
 
 We were a considerable time in deciding whether we should 
 be at the pains of introducing ourselves to the pubhc. As we 
 care for nobody, and as we are not yet at the bar, we do not 
 feel bound to hold up our hands and answer to our names. 
 
 WiEing, however, to gain at once that frank, confidential 
 footing, which we are certain of ultimately possessing in this, 
 doubtless, "best of all possible cities;" and, anxious to spare its 
 worthy inhabitants the trouble of making a thousand wise 
 conjectures, not one of which would be worth a "tobacco- 
 stopper," we have thought it in some degree a necessary exer- 
 tion of charitable condescension to furnish them with a sHght 
 clue to the truth. 
 
 Before we proceed further, however, we advise every body, 
 man, woman, and child, that can read, or get any friend to 
 read for them, to purchase this paper:— not that we write for 
 money ;— f or, in common with aU philosophical wiseacres, from 
 Solomon downwards, we hold it in supreme contempt. The 
 public are welcome to buy this work, or not, just as they 
 choose. If it be purchased freely, so much the better for the 
 public— and the publisher:— we gain not a stiver. If it be not 
 
 * It was not originally the intention of the authors to insert the above address in 
 the work- but unwilling that a morceau so precious should be lost to posterity, 
 they have been induced to alter their minds. This will account for any repetition 
 of idea that may appear in the introductory essay. 
 
8 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 purchased, -we give fair warning — we shall bum aU our essays, 
 critiques, and epigrams, in one promiscuous blaze ; and, like 
 the books of the sybils, and the Alexandrian library, they will 
 be lost for ever to posterity. For the sake, therefore, of our 
 pubhsher, for the sake of the public, and for the sake of the 
 public's children, to the nineteenth generation, we advise them 
 to purchase our paper. We beg the respectable old matrons 
 of this city, not to be alarmed at the appearance we make ; we 
 are none of those outlandish geniuses who swarm in New- 
 York, who live by their wits, or rather by the little wit of 
 their neighbours ; and who spoil the genuine honest American 
 tastes of their daughters, with French slops and fricasseed 
 sentiment. 
 
 We have said we do not write for money ; — neither do we 
 write for fame :— we know too well the variable nature of pub- 
 lic opinion to build our hopes upon it— we care not what the 
 public think of us ; and we suspect, before we reach the tenth 
 number, they will not know what to think of us. In two 
 words— we write for no other earthly purpose but to please 
 ovu-selves — and this we shall be sure of doing; for we are all 
 three of us determined beforehand to be pleased with what we 
 write. If, in the course of this work, we edify and instruct 
 and amuse the pubhc, so much the better for the pubhc:- but 
 we frankly acknowledge that so soon as we get tired of read- 
 ing our own works, we shall discontinue them without the 
 least remorse ; whatever the public may think of it. — ^While 
 we continue to go on, we wiU go on merrily : — if we moralize, 
 it shall be but seldom ; and, on all occasions, we shall be more 
 solicitous to make our readers laugh than cry; for we are 
 laughing philosophers, and clearly of opinion, that wisdom, 
 true wisdom, is a plump, joUy dame, who sits in her arm- 
 chair, laughs right merrily at the farce of Hfe — and takes the 
 world as it goes. 
 
 We intend particularly to notice the conduct of the fashion- 
 able world : nor in this shall we be governed by that carping 
 spirit with which narrow-minded book-worm cynics squint at 
 the httle extravagances of the ton; but with that hberal tolera- 
 tion which actuates every man of fashion. While we keep 
 more than a Cerberus watch over the guardian rules of female 
 dehcacy and decorum— we shall not discourage any little 
 sprighthness of demeanour, or innocent vivacity of character. 
 Before we advance one line further we must let it be under- 
 stood, as our firm opinion, void of all prejudice or partiality, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 9 
 
 that the ladies of New-York are the fairest, the finest, the 
 most accomplished, the most bewitching, the most ineffable 
 beings, that walk, creep, crawl, swim, fly, float, or vegetate in 
 any or all of the f oiir elements ; and that they only want to be 
 cured of certain whims, eccentricities, and unseemly conceits, 
 by our superintending cares, to render them absolutely per- 
 fect. They will, therefore, receive a large portion of those at- 
 tentions directed to the fashionable world ;— nor will the gentle- 
 men, who doze away their time in the circles of the haut-ton, 
 escape our currying. We mean those stupid fellows who sit 
 stock still upon their chairs, without saying a word, and then 
 
 complain how damned stupid it-was-at Miss 's party. 
 
 This department will be under the peculiar direction and 
 control of Anthony Evergeeen, gent., to whom all communi- 
 cations on this subject are to be addressed. This gentleman, 
 from his long experience in the routine of balls, tea-parties, 
 and assembUes, is eminently qualified for the task he has 
 undertaken. He is a kind of patriarch in the fashionable 
 world; and has seen generation after generation pass away 
 into the silent tomb of matrimony whale he remains unchange- 
 ably the same. He can recount the amours and courtships of 
 the fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts, and even the gran- 
 dames, of all the belles of the present day; provided their 
 pedigrees extend so far back without being lost in obscurity. 
 As, however, treating of pedigrees is rather an ungrateful task 
 in this city, and as we naean to be perfectly good-natured, he 
 has promised to be cautious in this particular. He recollects 
 perfectly the time when young ladies used to go sleigh-riding 
 at night, without their mammas or grandmammas ; in short, 
 without being matronized at all: and can relate a thousand 
 pleasant stories about Eissing-bridge. He Ukewise remembers 
 the time when ladies paid tea-visits at three in the afternoon, 
 and returned before dark to see that the house was shut up 
 and the servants on duty. He has often played cricket in the 
 orchard in the rear of old Vauxhall, and remembers when the 
 Bull's-head was quite out of town. Though he has slowly and 
 ^adually given into modem fashions, and still flourishes in 
 the beau-monde, yet he seems a little prejudiced in favor of the 
 dress and manners of the old school ; and his chief commenda- 
 tion of a new mode is "that it is the same good old fashion we 
 had before the war." It has cost us much trouble to make 
 him confess that a cotillion is superior to a minuet, or an un- 
 adorned crop to a pigtail and powder. Custom and fashion 
 
10 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 have, however, had more effect on him than all our lectures; 
 and he tempers, so happily, the grave and ceremonious gallan- 
 try of the old school with the " hail fellow" familiarity of the 
 new, that, we trust, on a Little acquaintance, and making 
 allowance for his old-fashioned prejudices, he will become a 
 very considerable favourite with our readers; — if not, the 
 worse for themselves ; as they wiU have to endure his com- 
 pany. 
 
 In the territory of criticism, "William Wizard, Esq., has 
 undertaken to preside ; and though we may all dabble in it a 
 little by turns, yet we have wUIingly ceded to him aU discre- 
 tionary powers in this respect, though WUl has not had the 
 advantage of an education at Oxford or Cambridge, or even at 
 Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, and though he is but Httle versed ui 
 Hebrew, yet we have no doubt he wUl be found f uUy competent 
 to the undertaking. He has improved his taste by a long resi- 
 dence abroad, particularly at Canton, Calcutta, and the gay 
 and polished court of Hayti. He has also had an opportunity 
 of seeing the best singing-girls and tragedians of China, is a 
 great connoisseur in mandarine dresses, and porcelain, and 
 particularly values himself on his intimate knowledge of the 
 buffalo, and war dances of the northern Indians. He is like- 
 wise promised the assistance of a gentleman, lately from 
 London, who was bom and bred in that centre of science and 
 bongout, the vicinity of Fleetmarket, where he has been edified, 
 man and boy, these six-and-twenty years, with the harmonious 
 jingle of Bow-beUs. His taste, therefore, has attained to such 
 an exquisite pitch of refinement that there are few exhibitions 
 of any kind which do not put him in a fever. He has assured 
 Will, that if Mr. Cooper emphasises "and" instead of "but"— 
 or Mrs. Oldmixon pins her kerchief a hair's breadth awry— or 
 Mrs. Darley offers to dare to look less than the ' ' daughter of a 
 senator of Venice"— the standard of a senator's daughter being 
 exactly six feet — they shaU aU hear of it in good time. We 
 have, however, advised WiU Wizard to keep his friend in check, 
 lest by opening the eyes of the public to the wretchedness of 
 the actors by whom, tbey have hitherto been entertained, he 
 might cut off one source of amusement from our fellow-citizens. 
 We hereby give notice, that we have taken the whole corps, 
 from the manager in his mantle of gorgeous copper-lace, to 
 honest John in his green coat and black breeches, under our 
 wing — and wo be unto him who injures a hair of their heads. 
 As we have no design against the patience of our feUow-citizens, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. H 
 
 we shall not dose them with copious draughts of theatrical 
 criticism; we well know that they have already been well 
 physicked with them of late ; our theatrics shall take up but a 
 small part of our paper ; nor shall they be altogether confined 
 to the stage, but extend from time to time, to those incorrigible 
 offenders against the peace of society, the stage-critics, who not 
 unfrequently create the fault they find, in order to yield an 
 opening for their witticisms— censure an actor for a gesture he 
 never made, or an emphasis he never gave ; and, in their at- 
 tempt to show off new readings, make the sweet swan of Avon 
 cackle Mke a goose. If any one should feel himself offended by 
 our remarks, let him attack us in return — we shall not wince 
 from the combat. If his passes be successful, we wfil be the 
 first to cry out, a hit 1 a hit ! and we doubt not we shall fre- 
 quently lay ourselves open to the weapons of our assailants. 
 But lot them have a care how they run a tilting with us — ^they 
 have to deal with stubborn foes, who can bear a world of pum- 
 meUng : we will be relentless in our vengeance, and will fight 
 "tiU from our bones the flesh be hackt." 
 
 What other subjects we shall include in the range of our ob- 
 servations, we have not determined, or rather we shall not 
 trouble ourselves to detail. The public have already more in- 
 formation concerning us, than we intended to impart. We 
 owe them no favours, neither do we ask any. We again advise 
 them, for their own sakes, to read our papers when they come 
 out. We recommend to all mothers to purchase them for their 
 daughters, who wiU be taught the true hne of propriety, and 
 the most advisable method of managing their beaux. We ad- 
 vise all daughters to purchase them for the sake of their 
 mothers, who shall be initiated into the arcana of the bon ton, 
 and cured of all those rusty old notions which they acquired 
 during the last century : parents shall be taught how to govern 
 their children, girls how to get husbands, and old maids how to 
 do without them. 
 
 As we do not measure our wits by the yard or the bushel, 
 and as they do not flow periodically nor constantly, we shall 
 not restrict our paper as to size or the time of its appearance. 
 It wfll be published whenever we have sufficient matter to con- 
 stitute a number, and the size of the number shall depend on 
 the stock in hand. This will best suit our neghgent habits, 
 and leave us that full liberty and independence which is the 
 joy and i^ride of our souls. As we have before hinted, that we 
 do not concern ourselves about the pecuniary matters of our 
 
12 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 paper, we leave its price to be regulated by our publisher, 
 only reconunending him for his own interest, and the honour 
 of his authors, not to sell their invaluable productions too 
 cheap. 
 
 Is there any one who wishes to know more about us?— let 
 him read Salmagundi, and grow wise apace. Thus much we 
 will say— there are three of us, "Bardolph, Peto, and I," all 
 townsmen good and true ; — many a time and oft have we three 
 amused the town without its knowing to whom it was indebted ; 
 and many a time have we seen the midnight lamp twinkle 
 faintly on our studious phizes, and heard the morning saluta- 
 tion of ' ' past three o'clock, " before wo sought our pillows. The 
 result of these midnight studies is now offered to the public; 
 and little as we care for the opinion of this exceedingly stupid 
 world, we shall take care, as far as lies in our careless natures, 
 to fulfil the promises made in this introduction ; if we do not, 
 we shall have so many examples to justify us, that we feel 
 little solicitude on that account. 
 
 THEATEIOS. 
 
 CONTAINING THE QUINTESSENCE OP MODERN CRITICISM. BY 
 WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 Macbeth was performed to a very crowded house, and much 
 to our satisfaction. As, however, our neighbor Town has been 
 very voluminous already in his criticisms on this play, we 
 shall make but few remarks. Having never seen Kemble in 
 this character, we are absolutely at a loss to say whether Mr. 
 Cooper performed it weU or not. We think, however, there 
 was an error in his costume, as the learned Linkum Fidelius is 
 of opinion, that in the time of Macbeth the Scots did not wear 
 sandals, but wooden shoes. Macbeth also was noted for wear- 
 ing his jacket open, that he might play the Scotch fiddle more 
 conveniently ; — that being an hereditary accomphshment in the 
 Glamis family. 
 
 We have seen this character performed in China by the cele- 
 brated Chow-Chow, the Eoscius of that great empire, who in 
 the dagger scene always electrified the audience by blowing his 
 nose like a trumpet. Chow-Chow, in compliance with the 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 13 
 
 opinion of the sage Linkum Fidelius, performed Macbeth in 
 wooden shoes; this gave him an opportunity of producing 
 gTeat effect, for on first seeing the "air-drawn dagger," he 
 always cut a prodigious high caper, and kicked his shoes into 
 the pit at the heads of the critics; whereupon the audience 
 were marvellously deUghted, flourished their hands, and 
 stroked their whiskers three times, and the matter was care- 
 fully recorded in the next number of a paper called the fliin 
 fiam. (English— town.) 
 
 We were much pleased with Mrs. Villiees in Lady Mac- 
 beth ; but we think she would have given a greater effect to the 
 night-scene, if, instead of holding the candle in her hand or 
 setting it down on the table, which is sagaciously censured by 
 neighbour Town, she had stuck it in her night-cap. This 
 would have been extremely picturesque, and would have 
 marked more strongly the derangement of her mind. 
 
 Mrs. Vniiers, however, is not by any means large enough 
 for the character ; Lady Macbeth having been, in our opinion, 
 a woman Of extraordinary size, and of the race of the giants, 
 notwithstanding what she says of her "Httle hand" — which 
 being said in her sleep, passes for nothing. We should be 
 happy to see this character in the hands of the lady who 
 played Glumdalca, queen of the giants, in Tom Thumb ; she is 
 exactly of imperial dimensions; and, provided she is well 
 shaved, of a most interesting physiognomy ; as she appears like- 
 wise to be a lady of some nerve, I dare engage she will read a 
 letter about witches vanishing in air, and such common occur- 
 rences, without being imnaturally surprised, to the annoyance 
 of honest "Town." 
 
 We are happy to observe that Mr. Cooper profits by the in- 
 structions of friend Town, and does not dip the daggers i» 
 blood so deep as formerly by a matter of an inch or two. This 
 was a violent outrage upon our immortal bard. We differ 
 with Mr. Town in his reading of the words, "this is a so^-ry 
 sight." We are of opinion the force of the sentence should be 
 thrown on the word sight, because Macbeth, having been 
 shortly before most confoundedly humbugged with an aerial 
 dagger, was in doubt whether the daggers actually in his 
 hands were real, or whether they were not mere shadows, or 
 as the old English may have termed it, syghtes; (this, at any 
 rate, will establish our skill in new readings.) Though we 
 differ in this respect from our neighbour Town, yet we heart- 
 ily agree witli him in censuring Mr. Cooper for omitting that 
 
14 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 passage so remarkable for "beauty of imagery," &c., begin- 
 ning with "and pity, like a naked, new-born babe," &c. It i$ 
 one of those passages of Shakspeare which should always be 
 retained, for the purpose of showing how sometimes that 
 great poet could talk like a buzzard; or, to speak more plainly, 
 like the famous mad poet Nat Lee. 
 
 As it is the first duty of a friend to advise — and as we pro- 
 fess and do actually feel a friendship for honest " Town"— we 
 warn him, never in his criticisms to meddle with a lady's 
 "petticoats," or to quote Nic Bottom. In the fli-st instance he 
 may " catch a tartar;" and in the second, the ass's head may 
 rise up in judgment against him ; and when it is once afloat 
 there is no knowing where some unlucky hand may place it. 
 We would not, for aU the money in our pockets, see Town 
 flourishing his critical quiU under "the auspices of an ass's head, 
 like the great Franklin in his Monterio Cap. 
 
 NEW-YOEK ASSEMBLY. 
 
 BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 
 
 The assemblies this year have gained a great accession of 
 beauty. Several brilliant stars have arisen from the east and 
 from the north to brighten the firmament of fashion ; among 
 the number I have discovered another planet, which rivals 
 even Venus in lustre, and I claim equal honour with Herschel 
 for my discovery. I. shall take some future opportunity to 
 describe this planet, and the numerous satellites which revolve 
 around it. 
 
 At the last assembly the company began to make some show 
 about eight, but the most fashionable delayed their appearance 
 until about nine — nine being the number of the muses, and 
 therefore the best possible hour for beginning to exhibit the 
 graces. (This is meant for a pretty play upon words, and I 
 assure my readers that I think it very tolerable.) 
 
 Poor Will Honeycomb, whose memory I hold in special 
 consideration, even with his half century of experience, would 
 have been puzzled to point out the humours of a lady by her 
 prevailing colours; for the "rival queens" of fashion, Mrs. 
 Toole and Madame Bouchard, appeared to have exhausted 
 
SALMAQUNDI. ig 
 
 their wonderful inventions in the different disposition, varia- 
 tion, and combination of tints and shades. The philosopher 
 who maintained that black was white, and that of course there 
 was no such colour as white, might have given some colour to 
 his theory on this occasion, by the absence of poor forsaken 
 white muslin. I was, however, much pleased to see that red 
 maintains its ground against aU other colours, because red is 
 the colour of Mr. Jefferson's ****** t^qjo. Paine's nose, 
 and my slippers. 
 
 Let the grumbling smeUfungi of this world, who cultivate 
 taste among books, cobwebs, and spiders, rail at the extrava- 
 gance of the age; for my part, I was delighted with the magic 
 of the scene, and as the ladies tripped through the mazes of 
 the dance, sparkling and glowing and dazzling, I, hke the hon- 
 est Chinese, thanked them heartily for the jewels and finery 
 with which they loaded themselves, merely .for the entertain- 
 ment of by-standers, and blessed my stars that I was a 
 bachelor. 
 
 The gentlemen were considerably numerous, and being as 
 usual equipt in their appropriate black uniiorms, constituted 
 a sable regiment which contributed not a little to the brUhant 
 gayety of the ball-room. I must confess I am indebted for 
 this remark to our friend, tbe cockney, Mr. 'Sbidlikensflash, 
 or ^Sbidlikens, as he is called for shortness. He is a f-eUow of 
 infinite verbosity— stands in high favour — with himself— and, 
 like Caleb Quotem, is " up to every thing." I remember when 
 a comfortable, plumb-looking citizen led into the room a fair 
 damsel, who looked for all the world like the personification 
 of a rainbow: 'Sbidhkens observed that it reminded him of a 
 fable, which he had read somewhere, of the marriage of an 
 honest, painstaking snail ; who had once walked six feet in an 
 hour for a wager, to a butterfly whom he used to gallant by 
 the elbow, with the aid of much puffing and exertion. On 
 being called upon to tell where he had come across this story, 
 'Sbidliliens absolutely refused to answer. 
 
 It would but be repeating an old story to say, that the ladies 
 of New-York dance well;— and well may they, since they learn 
 it scientifically, and begin their lessons before they have quit 
 their swaddling clothes. The immortal Dupoet has usurped 
 despotic sway over all the female heads and heels in this city; 
 =— hornbooks, primers, and pianos are neglected to attend to 
 his positions ; and poor Chilton, with his pots and kettles and 
 chemical crockery, finds him a more potent enemy than the 
 
16 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 whole collective force of the "North Eiver Society." 'Sbid- 
 likens insists that this dancing mania will inevitably continue 
 as long as a dancing-master wUl charge the fashionable price 
 of five-and-twenty doUars a quarter and all the other accom- 
 plishments are so vulgar as to be attainable at "half the 
 money;"— but I put no faith in 'Sbidlikens' candour in this 
 particular. Among his infinitude of endowments he is but a 
 poor proficient in dancing; ajid though he often flounders 
 through a cotillion, yet he never cut a pigeon-wing in his life. 
 
 In my mind there's no position more positive and unexcep- 
 tionable than that most Frenchmen, dead or alive, are born 
 dancers. I came pounce upon this discovery at the assembly, 
 and I imm.ediately noted it down in my register of indisputable 
 facts : — the public shall know all about it. As I never dance 
 cotiUions, holding them to be monstrous distorters of the 
 hmnan frame, and tantamount in their operations to being 
 broken and dislocated on the wheel, I generally take occasion, 
 while they are going on, to make my remarks on the company. 
 In the course of these observations I was struck with the ener- 
 gy and eloquence of sundry limbs, which seemed to be flourish- 
 ing about without appertaining to any body. After much in- 
 vestigation and diflaculty, I at length traced them to their re- 
 spective owners, whom I found to be all Frenchmen to a man. 
 Art may have meddled somewhat in these afEairs, but nature 
 certainly did more. I have since been considerably employed 
 in calculations on this subject ; and by the most accurate com- 
 putation I have determined that a Frenchman passes at least 
 three-fifths of his time between the heavens and the earth, and 
 partakes eminently of the nature of a gossamer or soap-bubble. 
 One of these jack-o'-lantern heroes, in taking a figure which 
 neither Euchd or Pythagoras himself could demonstrate, unfor- 
 tunately wound himself — ^I mean his feet, his better part— into a 
 lady's cobweb muslin robe ; but perceiving it at the instant, he 
 set himself a spinning the other way, like a top, unravelled his 
 step without omitting one angle or curve, and extricated him- 
 self without breaking a thread of the lady's dress! he then 
 sprung up, like a sturgeon, crossed his feet four times, and fin- 
 ished this wonderful evolution by quivering his left leg, as a 
 cat does her paw when she has accidentally dipped it in water. 
 No man "of woman born," who was not a Frenchman or a 
 mountebank, could have done the like. 
 
 Among the new faces, I remarked a blooming nymph, who 
 has brought a fresh supply of roses from the country to adorn 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 17 
 
 the wreath of beauty, where lilies too much predominate. As 
 I wish well to every sweet face under heaven, I sincerely hope 
 her roses may survive the frosts and dissipations of winter, and 
 lose nothing by a comparison with the lovehest offerings of the 
 spring. 'Sbidhkens, to whom I made siiaUar remarks, assured 
 me that they were very just, and very prettUy exprest ; and 
 that the lady in question was a prodigious fine piece of flesh 
 and blood. Now could I find it in my heart to baste these 
 cockneys like their own roast-beef — they can make no distinc- 
 tion between a fine woman and a fine horse. 
 
 I would praise the sylph-like grace with which another young 
 lady acquitted herself in the dance, but that she excels in far 
 more valuable accomplishments. Who praises the rose for its 
 beauty, even though it is beautiful. 
 
 The company retired at the customary hour to the supper- 
 room, where the tables were laid out with their usual splen- 
 dour and profusion. My friend, 'Sbidlikens, with the native 
 forethought of a cockney, had carefully stowed his pocket with 
 cheese and crackers, that he might not be tempted again to 
 venture his limbs in the crowd of hungry fair ones who throng 
 the supper-room door ; his precaution was unnecessary, for the 
 company entered the room with surprising order and decorum. 
 No gowns were torn — no ladies fainted— no noses bled — nor was 
 there any need of the interference of either managers or peace 
 oflBcers. 
 
18 SALMAGUifDl. 
 
 NO. II -WEDNESDAY, FEB'Y 4, 1807. 
 
 FROM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF LAUNCELOT LANG- 
 STAFF, ESQ. 
 
 In the conduct of an epic poem, it has been the custom, from 
 time immemorial, for the poet occasionally to introduce Ms 
 reader to an intimate acquaintance with the heroes of Ms story, 
 by conducting him into their tents, and giving him an oppor- 
 tunity of observing them in their night-gown and sUppers. 
 However I despise the servile genius that wotdd descend to fol- 
 low a precedent, though furnished by Homer himself, and con- 
 sider him as on a par with the cart that follows at the heels of 
 the horse, without ever taking the lead, yet at the present mo- 
 ment my whim is opposed to my opinion ; and whenever this 
 is the case, mj opinion generally surrenders at discretion. I 
 am determined, therefore, to give the town a peep into our 
 divan ; and I shall repeat it as often as I please, to show that I 
 intend to be sociable. 
 
 The other night Will Wizard and Evergreen called upon me, 
 to pass away a few hours in social chat and hold a kind of 
 council of war. To give a zest to our evening I uncorked a 
 bottle of London particular, which has grown old with myself, 
 and which never fails to excite a smUe in the countenances of 
 my old cronies, to whom alone it is devoted. After some little 
 time the conversation turned on the effect produced by our 
 first number; every one had his budget of information, and I 
 assure my readers that we laughed most unceremoniously at 
 their expense ; they wiU excuse us for our merriment— 'tis a 
 way we've got. Evergreen, who is equally a favourite and 
 companion <of young and old, was particularly satisfactory in 
 his details ; and it was highly amusing to hear how different 
 characters were tickled with different passages. The old folks 
 were delighted to find there was a bias in our junto towards 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 19 
 
 the "good old times;" and he particularly noticed a worthy 
 old gentleman of his acquaintance, who had been somewhat a 
 beau in his day, whose eyes brightened at the bare mention of 
 Kissing-bridge. It recalled to his recollection several of his 
 youthful exploits, at that celebrated pass, on which he seemed 
 to dwell with great pleasure and self-complacency ;— he hoped, 
 he said, that the bridge might be preserved for the benefit ef 
 posterity, and as a monument of the gallantry of their grand- 
 fathers ; and even hinted at the expediency of erecting a toll- 
 gate, to collect the forfeits of the ladies. But the most flatter- 
 ing testimony of approbation, which our work has received, 
 was from an old lady, 'who never laughed but once in her life, 
 and that was at the conclusion of the last war. She was de- 
 tected by friend Anthony in the very fact of laughing most 
 obstreporously at the description of the little dancing French- 
 man. Now it glads my very heart to find our effusions have 
 such a pleasing effect. I venerate the aged, and joy whenever 
 it is in my power to scatter a few flowers in their path. 
 
 The yoim.g people were particularly interested in the account 
 of the assembly. There was some difference of opinion re- 
 specting the new planet, and the blooming nymph from the 
 coimtry ; but as to the comphment paid to the fascinating little 
 sylph who danced so gracefully — every lady modestly took 
 that to herself. 
 
 Evergreen mentioned also that the young ladies were ex- 
 tremely anxious to learn the true mode of managing their 
 beaux; and Miss Diana Wearwell, who is as chaste as an 
 icicle, has seen a few superfluous winters pass over her head, 
 and boasts of having slain her thousands, wished to know how 
 old maids were to do without husbands; — not that she was 
 very curious about the matter, she " only asked for informa- 
 tion." Several ladies expressed their earnest desire that we 
 wovild not spare those wooden gentlemen who perform the 
 parts of mutes, or stalking horses, in their drawing-rooms; 
 and their mothers were equally anxious that we would show 
 no qiaarter to those lads of spirit, who now and then cut their 
 bottles to enliven a tea-party with the humours of the dinner- 
 table. 
 
 Will Wizard was not a little chagrined at having been mis- 
 taken for a gentleman, "who is no more like me,"saidWiU, 
 "than I like Hercules." — "I was well assured," continued 
 WiU, "that as our characters were drawn from nature, the 
 originals would be found in every society. And so it has hap- 
 
20 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 pened — every little circle has its 'Sbidlikens ; and the cockney, 
 intended merely as the representative of his species, has 
 dwindled into an insignificant individual, who having recog- 
 nised his own likeness, has foolishly appropriated to himself a 
 picture for which he never sat. Such, too, has been the case 
 with Ding-dong, who has kindly undertaken to be my repre- 
 sentative ;— not that I care much about the matter, for it must 
 be acknowledged that the animal is a good animal enough ;— 
 and what is more, a fashionable animal — and this is saying 
 more than to caU him a conjurer. But, I am much mistaken 
 if he can claim any affinity to the Wizard family, — Surely 
 every body knows Ding-dong, the gentle Ding-dong, who per- 
 vades all space, who is here and there and every where ; no 
 tea-party can be complete without Ding-dong— and his appear- 
 ance is sure to occasion a smUe. Ding-dong has been the 
 occasion of much wit in his day; I have even seen many 
 whipsters attempt to be dull at his expense, who were as much 
 inferior to him as the gad-fly is to the ox that he buzzes about. 
 Does any witling want to distress the company with a misera- 
 ble ptm? nobody's name presents sooner than Ding-dong's; 
 and it has been played upon with equal skUl and equal enter- 
 taimnent to the by-standers as Trinity-bells. Ding-dong is 
 profoundly devoted to the ladies, and highly entitled to their 
 regard ; for I know no man who makes a better bow, or talks 
 less to the purpose than Ding-dong. Ding-dong has acquired a 
 prodigious fund of knowledge by reading DUworth when a 
 boy ; and the other day, on being asked who was the author 
 of Macbeth, answered, without the least hesitation— Shak- 
 speare ! Ding-dong has a quotation for every day of the year, 
 and every hour of the day, and every minute of the hour ; -but 
 he often commits pettylarcenies on the poets— plucks the gray 
 hairs of old Chaucer's head, and claps them on the chin of 
 Pope; and filches Johnson's wig, to cover the bald pate of 
 Homer;— but his blunders pass undetected by one-half of his 
 hearers. Ding-dong, it is true, though he has long wrangled 
 at our bar, cannot boast much of his legal knowledge, nor does 
 his forensic eloquence entitle him to rank with a Cicero or a 
 Demosthenes ; but bating his professional deficiencies, he is a 
 man of most delectable discourse, and can hold forth for an 
 hour upon the colour of a riband or the construction of a work- 
 bag. Ding-dong is now in his fortieth year, or perhaps a little 
 more— rivals all the little beaux in the town, in his attentions 
 to the ladies — ^is in a state of rapid improvement ; and there is 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 21 
 
 no doubt but that by the time he arrives at years of discretion, 
 he will be a very accompKshed, agreeable young feUow." — I 
 advise all clever, good-for-nothing, "learned and authentic 
 gentlemen," to take care how they wear this cap, however 
 well it fits ; and to bear in mind, that our characters are not 
 individuals, but species: if, after this warning, any person 
 chooses to represent Mr. Ding-dong, the sin is at his own door ; 
 we wash our hands of it. 
 
 We all sympathized with Wizard, that he should be mis- 
 taken for a person so very different ; and I hereby assure my 
 readers, that William Wizard is no other person in the whole 
 world but William Wizard ; so I beg I may hear no more con- 
 jectures on the subject. Will is, in fact, a wiseacre by inherit- 
 ance. The Wizard family has long been celebrated for know- 
 ing more than their neighbours, particularly concerning their 
 neighbours' affairs. They were anciently called Josselin ; but 
 WUl's great uncle, by the father's side, having been accident- 
 ally burnt for a witch in Connecticut, in consequence of blow- 
 ing up his own house in a philosophical experiment, the 
 family, in Order to perpetuate the recollection of this memora- 
 ble circumstance, assumed the name and arms of Wizard ; and 
 have borne them ever since. 
 
 In the course of my customary morning's walk, I stopped in 
 a book-stoTe, which is noted for being the favoutite haunt of a 
 number of Mterati, some of whom rank high in the opinion of 
 the world, and others rsaik equally high in their own. Here I 
 found a knot of queer fellows listening to one of their com- 
 pany who was reading our paper ; I particularly noticed Mr. 
 ICHABOD FmsTGUs among the number. 
 
 Fungus is one of those fidgeting, meddling quidnuncs, with 
 which this unhappy city is pestered: one of your "Q in a 
 corner fellows," who speaks volumes with a wink; — conveys 
 most portentous information, by laying his finger beside his 
 nose, — and is always smelling a rat in the most trifling occur- 
 rence. He listened to our work with the most frigid gravity — 
 every now and then gave a mysterious shrug— a humph— or a 
 screw of the mouth; and on being asked his opinion at the 
 conclusion, said, he did not know what to think of it; — he 
 hoped it did not mean any thing against the government— that 
 no lurking treason was couched in all this talk. These were 
 dangeroustimes— times of plot and conspiracy; he did not at 
 all like those stars after Mr. Jefferson's name, they had an air 
 of concealment. Dick Paddle, who was one of the group. 
 
22 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 undertook our cause. Dick is known to the world, as being a 
 most knowing genius, who can see as far as any body — into a 
 millstone; maintains, in the teeth of all argument, that a 
 spade is a spade; and will labour a good half hour by St. 
 Paul's clock, to establish a self-evident fact. Dick assured old 
 Fungus, that those stars merely stood for Mr. JefiEerson's red 
 what-d'yo-call-ems ; and that so far from a conspiracy against 
 their peace and prosperity, the authors, whom he knew very 
 well, were only expressing their high respect for them. The old 
 man shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, gave a mysteri- 
 ous Lord Burleigh nod, said he hoped it might be so ; but he 
 was by no means satisfied with this attack upon the Presi- 
 dent's breeches, as "thereby hangs a tale." 
 
 MR WILSON'S CONCERT. 
 
 3Y ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 
 
 In my register of indisputable facts I have noted it conspicu- 
 ously that aU modern music is but the mere dregs and drain- 
 ing of the ancient, and that aU the spirit and vigour of har- 
 mony has entirely evaporated in the lapse of ages. Oh! for 
 the chant of the Naiades, and Dryades, the shell of the Tritons, 
 and the sweet warbMngs of the Mermaids of ancient days! 
 where now shall we seek the Amphion, who built walls with a 
 turn of his hurdy-gurdy, the Orpheus who made stones to 
 whistle about his ears, and trees hop in a country dance, by 
 the mere quavering of his fiddle-stick ! ah ! had I the power of 
 the former how soon would I build up the new City-Hall, and 
 save the cash and credit of the Corporation ; and how much 
 sooner would I build myself a snug house in Broadway: -nor 
 would it be the first time a house has been obtained there for a 
 song. In my opinion, the Scotch bag-pipe is the only instru- 
 ment that rivals the ancient lyre ; and I am surprised it should 
 be almost the only one entirely excluded from our concerts. 
 
 Talking of concerts reminds me of that given a few nights 
 since by Mr. Wilson; at which I had the misfortune of being 
 present. It was attended by a numerous company, and gave 
 great satisfaction, if I may be allowed to judge from the 
 frequent gapinge of the audience; though IwiU not risk my 
 
SAhM-AGUNDI. 23 
 
 credit as a connoisseur, by saying v/hether they proceeded 
 from wonder or a violent inclination to doze. I was delighted 
 to find in the mazes of the crowd, my particular friend 
 Sniyers, who had put on his cognoscenti phiz — he being, 
 according to his own account, a profound adept in the science 
 of music. He can tell a crotchet at first sight; and, like a true 
 Englishman, is delighted with the plum-pudding rotundity of 
 a semibref; and, in short, boasts of having incontinently 
 climbed up PafE's musical tree, which hangs every day upon 
 the poplar, from the fundamental concord, to the fundamental 
 major discord; and so on from branch to branch, until he 
 reached the very top, where he sung "Rule Britannia," 
 clapped his wings, and then — came down again. Like all true 
 trans-atlantic judges, he suffers most horribly at our musical 
 entertainments, and assures me, that what with the con- 
 founded scraping, and scratching, and grating of our fiddlers, 
 he thinks the sitting out one of our concerts tantamount to the 
 pimishment of that imfortunate saint, who was frittered in 
 two with a hand-saw. 
 
 The concert was given in the tea-room, at the City-Hotel; an 
 apartment admirably calculated, by its dingy walls, beauti- 
 fully marbled with smoke, to show off the dresses and com- 
 plexions of the ladies; and by the flatness of its ceUing to 
 repress those impertinent reverberations of the music, which, 
 whatever others may foolishly assert, are, as Snivers says, 
 "no better than repetitions of old stories." 
 
 Mr. Wilson gave me infinite satisfaction by the gentility of 
 his demeanour, and the roguish looks he now and then cast at 
 the ladies, but we fear his excessive modesty threw him into 
 some httle confusion, for he absolutely forgot himself, and in 
 the whole course of his entrances and exits, never once made 
 his bow to the audience. On the whole, however, I think he 
 has a fine voice, sings with great taste, and is a very modest, 
 good-looking Httle man; but I beg leave to repeat the advice so 
 often given by the illustrious tenants of the theatrical sky- 
 parlour, to the gentlemen who are charged with the "nice 
 conduct" of chairs and tables— "make a bow, Johnny- 
 Johnny, mate a bow !" 
 
 I cannot, on tliis occasion, but express my surprise that cer- 
 tain amateurs should be so frequently at concerts, considering 
 what agonies they suffer while a piece of music is playin'g. 
 I defy any man of common humanity, and who has not the 
 Iheart of a Choctaw, to contemplate the countenance of one of 
 
24 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 these unhappy victims of a fiddle-stick without feeling a senti- 
 ment of compassion. His whole visago is distorted ; he roJls 
 up his eyes, as M'Sycophant says, "Hke a duck in thunder," 
 and the music seems to operate upon him hke a lit of the 
 coHc : his very bowels seem to sympathize at every twang of 
 the cat-gut, as if he hoard at that moment the wailings of the 
 helpless animal that had been sacrificed to harmony. Nor 
 does the hero of the orchestra seem less affected ; as soon as 
 • the signal is given, he seizes his fiddle-stick, makes a most 
 horrible grimace, scowls fiercely upon his music-book, as 
 though he would grin every crotchet and quaver out of counte- 
 nance. I have sometimes particularly noticed a hungry -looking 
 Gaul, who torments a huge bass-viol, and who is, doubtless, the 
 original of the famous " Eaw-head-and-bloody -bones," so potent 
 in frightening naughty children. 
 
 The person who played the French-hom was very excellent 
 in his way, but Snivers could not relish his performance, hav- 
 ing sometime since heard a gentleman amateur in Gotham 
 play a solo on his proboscis, in a style infinitely superior;— 
 Snout, the beUows-mender, never turned his wind instrument 
 more musically ; nor did the celebrated ' ' knight of the burn- 
 ing lamp," ever yield more exquisite entertainment with his 
 nose; this gentleman had latterly ceased to exhibit this pro- 
 digious accomplishment, having, it was whispered, hired out 
 his snout to a ferryman, who had lost his conch-sheU ;— the 
 consequence was that he did not show his nose in company so 
 frequently as before. 
 
 Sitting late the other evening in my elbow-chair, indulging 
 in that kind of indolent meditation, which I consider the per- 
 fection of human bhss, I was roused from my reverie by the 
 entrance of an old servant in the Cockloft hveryj who handed 
 me a letter, containing the following address from my cousin 
 and old college chum, Pindar Cockloft. 
 
 Honest Andrew, as he dehverod it, informed me that his 
 master, who resides a Uttle way from town, on reading a small 
 pamphlet in a neat yellow cover, rubbed his hands with 
 symptoms of great satisfaction, called for tis favourite 
 Chinese inkstand, with two sprawling Mandarines for its sup- 
 porters, and wrote the letter which he had the honour to 
 present me. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 25 
 
 As I foresee my cousin will one day become a great favourite 
 with the public, and as I know him to be somewhat punctilious 
 as it respects etiquette, I shall take this opportxmity to gratify 
 the old gentleman by giving him a proper introduction to the 
 fashionable world. The Cockloft family, to which I have the 
 comfort of being related, has been fruitful in old bachelors 
 and hvunourists, as will be perceived when I come to treat 
 more of its history. My cousin Pindar is one of its most con- 
 spicuous members— he is now in his fifty-eighth year^is a 
 bachelor, partly through choice, and partly through chance, 
 and an oddity of the first water. Half his life has been em- 
 ployed in writing odes, sonnets, epigrams, and elegies, which 
 he seldom shows to any body but myself after they are 
 written ; and all the old chests, drawers, and chair-bottoms in 
 the house, teem with his productions. 
 
 In his yoimger days he figured as a dashing blade in the 
 great world ; and no young fellow of the town wore a longer 
 pig-tail, or carried more biickram in his skirts. From sixteen 
 to thirty he was continually in love, and during that period, 
 to use his own words, he be-scribbled more paper than would 
 serve the theatre for snow-storms a whole season. The even- 
 ing of his thirtieth birthday, as he sat by the fireside, as much 
 in love as ever was man in the world and writing the name of 
 his mistress in the ashes, with an old tongs that had lost one 
 of its legs, he was seized with a whim-wham that he was an 
 old fool to be in love at his time of life. It was ever one of 
 the Cockloft characteristics to strike to whim ; and had Pindar 
 stood out on this occasion he would have brought the reputa- 
 tion of his mother in question. From that time he gave up all 
 particular attentions to the ladies; and though he still loves 
 their company, he has never been known to exceed the bounds 
 of common courtesy in his intercourse with them. He was 
 the life and ornament of our family circle in town, until the 
 epoch of the French revolution, which sent so many unfor- 
 tunate dancing-masters from their country to polish and en- 
 lighten our hemisphere. This was a sad time for Pindar, who 
 had taken a genuine Cockloft prejudice against every thing 
 French, ever since he was brought to death's door by a ragout: 
 he groaned at Ca Ira, and the Marseilles Hymn had much the 
 same effect upon him that sharpening a knife on a dry whet- 
 stone has upon some people ;— it set his teeth chattering. He 
 might in time have been reconciled to these rubs, had not the 
 introduction of French cockades on the hats of our citizens 
 
26 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 absolutely thrown him into a fever. The first time he saw an 
 instance of this kind, he came home with great precipitation, 
 packed up his trunk, his old-fashioned writing-desk, and his 
 Chinese ink-stand, and made a kind of growling retreat to 
 Cockloft-Hall, where he has resided ever since. 
 
 My cousin Pindar is of a mercurial disposition, — a humour- 
 ist without ill-nature— he is of the true gun-powder temper;— 
 one flash and aU is over. It is true when the wind is easterly^ 
 or the gout gives him a gentle twinge, or he hears of any new 
 successes of the French, he will become a little splenetic; and 
 heaven help the man, and more particularly the woman, that 
 crosses his humour at that moment;— she is sure to receive no 
 quarter. These are the most sublime moments of Pindar. I 
 swear to you, dear ladies and gentlemen, I would not lose one 
 of these splenetic bursts for the best wig in my wardrobe; 
 even though it were proved to be the identical wig worn by 
 the sage Linkum Fidelius, when he demonstrated before the 
 whole university of Ley den, that it was possible to make 
 bricks without straw. I have seen the old gentleman blaze 
 forth such a volcanic explosion of wit, ridicule, and satire, 
 that I was almost tempted to believe him inspired. But these 
 sallies only lasted for a moment, and passed Uke sununei 
 clouds over the benevolent sunshine which ever warmed his 
 heart and Ughted up his countenance. 
 
 Time, though it has dealt roughly with his person, has 
 passed lightly over the graces of his mind, and left him in full 
 possession of aU the sensibilities of youth. His eye kindles at 
 the relation of a noble and generous action, his heart melts at 
 the story of distress, and he is still a warm admirer of the 
 fair. Like all old bachelors, however, he looks back with a 
 fond and lingering eye on the period of his boyhood; and 
 would sooner suffer the pangs of matrimony than acknowl- 
 edge that the world, or any thing in it, is half so clever as it 
 was in those good old times that are "gone by." ' 
 
 I believe I have already mentioned, that with all his good 
 qualities he is a humourist, and a humourist of the highest 
 order. He has some of the most intolerable whim-whams I 
 ever met with in my Ufe, and his oddities are sufficient to eke 
 out a hundred tolerable, originals. But I wiU not enlarge on 
 them — enough has been told to excite a desire to know more; 
 and I am much mistaken, if in the course of half a dozen of 
 our numbers, he don't tickle, plague, please, and perplex the 
 whole town, and completely establish his claim to the laure- 
 
SALMAOUNBI. 27 
 
 ateship he has solicited, and with which we hereby invest 
 him, recommending him and his efEusions to pubhc reverence 
 and respect. 
 
 Latotcelot Langstaff. 
 
 TO LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, xsiSQ. 
 
 Deae Launce, 
 
 As I find you have taken the quill, 
 To put our gay town, and its fair under drilL 
 I offer my hopes for success to your cause, 
 And send you unvarnish'd my mite of applause. 
 
 Ah, Launce, this poor town has been wofuUy fash'd; 
 Has long been be-Frenchman'd, be-cockney'd, be-trash'd ; 
 And our ladies he-devil'd, bewilder'd astray. 
 From the rules of there grandames have wander'd away. 
 No longer that modest demeanour we meet. 
 Which whilom the eyes of our fathers did greet ;- 
 No longer be-mobbled, be-ruffled, be-quill'd, 
 Be-powder'd, be-hooded, be-patch'd, and be-frill'd, — 
 No longer our fair ones their grograms display. 
 And stiff in brocade, strut ' ' like castles" away. 
 
 Oh, how fondly my soul forms departed have traced, 
 When our ladies in stays, and in boddice well laced. 
 When bishop'd, and cushion'd, and hoop'd to the chin, 
 Well callash'd without, and well bolster'd within; 
 All cased in their buckrams, from crown down to tail, 
 like O'BraUagan's mistress, were shaped like a pail. 
 
 WeU — ^peace to those fashions — the joy of our eyes— 
 Tempora mutantur, — new foUies will rise; 
 Yet, "hke joys that are past," they still crowd on the mind, 
 In moments of thought, as the soul looks behind. 
 
 Sweet days of our boyhood, gone by, my dear Launce, 
 Like the shadows of night, or the forms in a trance; 
 Yet oft we retrace those bright visions again, 
 Nos mutamur, 'tis true— but those visions remain 
 I recall with delight, how my bosom would creep. 
 When some deUcate foot from its chamber would peep ; 
 And when I a neat stocking'd ankle could spy, 
 —By the sages of old, I was rapt to the sky ! 
 
23 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 All then was retiring — was modest — discreet ; 
 
 The beauties, all shrouded, were left to conceit ; 
 
 To the visions which fancy would form in her eye, 
 
 Of graces that snug in soft ambush would lie ; 
 
 And the heart, Uke the poets, in thought would pursue 
 
 The elysium of bhss, which was veU'd from its view. 
 
 We are old-f ashion'd fellows, our nieces will say : 
 Old-fashion'd, indeed, coz — and swear it they may — 
 For I freely confess that it yields me no pride. 
 To see them all blaze what their mothers would hide : 
 To see them, aU shivering, some cold winter's day, 
 So lavish their beauties and graces display, 
 And give to each f opling that offers his hand, 
 Like Moses from Pisgah — a peep at the land. 
 
 But a truce with complaining— the object in view 
 Is to offer my help in the work you pursue ; 
 And as your effusions and labours subhme. 
 May need, now and then, a few touches of rhyme, 
 I humbly solicit, as cousin and friend, 
 A quiddity, quirk, or remonstrance to send : 
 Or should you a laureate want in your plan. 
 By the muff of my grandmother, I am your man ! 
 You must know I have got a poetical mill, 
 Which with odd lines, and couplets, and triplits I fill; 
 And a poem I grind, as from rags white and blue 
 The paper-mill yields you a sheet fair and new. 
 I can grind down an ode, or an epic that's long, 
 Into sonnet, acrostic, conundrum, or song: 
 As to dull hudibrastic, so boasted of late. 
 The doggerel discbarge of some muddled brain'd pate, 
 I can grind it by wholesale— and give it its point. 
 With biUiiigsgate dish'd up in rhymes out of joint. 
 
 I have read all the poets— and got them by heart, 
 Can sHt them, and twist them, and take them apart ; 
 Can cook up an ode out of patches and shreds. 
 To muddle my readers, and bother their heads. 
 Old Homer, and Virgil, and Ovid I scan, 
 Anacreon, and Sappho, who changed to a swan; — 
 Iambics and sapphics I grind at my will, 
 And with ditties of love every noddle can fill. 
 
 Oh, 'twould do your heart good, Launce, to see my mill 
 grind 
 Old stuff into verses, and poems refin'd; — 
 
SALMAGUXDL 29 
 
 Dan Spencer, Dan Chaucer, those poets of old, 
 Though cover'd with dust, are yet true steriing gold; 
 I can grind off their tarnish, and bring them to view, 
 New modell'd, new mill'd, and improved in their hue. 
 
 But I promise no more — only give me the place, 
 And I'll warrant I'U fill it with credit and grace ; 
 By the Uving ! I'll figure and cut you a dash 
 — As bold as WiU Wizard, or 'Sbidlikens-flash 1 
 
 PiNDAE Cockloft. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Pebhaps the most fruitful source of mortification to a merry 
 writer who, for the amusement of himself and the pubhc, 
 employs his leisure in sketching odd characters from imagina- 
 tion, is, that he cannot flourish his pen, but every Jack-pud- 
 tliag imagines it is pointed directly at himself:— he cannot, 
 in his gambols, throw a fool's cap among the crowd, but every 
 queer fellow insists upon puttng it on his own head; or chalk 
 an outlandish figure, but every outlandish genius is eager to 
 write his own name under it. However we may be mortified, 
 that these men should each individually think himself of suffi- 
 cient consequence to engage our attention, we should not care 
 a rush about it, if they did not get into a passion and com- 
 plain of having been ill-used. 
 
 It is not in our hearts to hurt the feelings of one single 
 mortal, by holding him up to pubhc ridicule; and if it were, 
 we lay it down as one cl our indisputable facts, that no man 
 can be made ridiculous but by his own foUy. As, however, 
 we are aware that when a man by chance gets a thwack in the 
 crowd, he is apt to suppose the blow was intended exclusively 
 for himself, and so fall into unreasonable anger, we have de- 
 termined to let these crusty gentry know what kind of satis- 
 faction they are to expect from us. We are resolved not to 
 fight, for three special reasons ; first, because fighting is at all 
 events extremely troublesome and inconvenient, particularly 
 at this season of the year; second, because if either of us 
 should happen to be killed, it would be a great loss to the 
 public, and rob them of many a good laugh we have in store 
 for their amusement ; and third, because if we should chance 
 to kUl our adversary, as is most likely, for we can every one 
 
30 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 of US split balls upon razors, and snuff candles, it would be a 
 loss to our publisher, by depriving him of a good customer. 
 If any gentleman casuist will give three as good reasons for 
 fighting, we promise him a complete set of Salmagundi for 
 nothing. 
 
 But though we do not fight in our own proper persons, let it 
 not be supposed that we will not give ample satisfaction to all 
 those who may choose to demand it — for this would be a mis- 
 take of the first magnitude, and lead very valiant gentlemen per- 
 haps iato what is called a quandary. It would be a thousand 
 and one pities, that any honest man, after taking to himself 
 the cap and bells which we merely oflEered to his acceptance, 
 should not have the privilege of being cudgeled into the bar- 
 gain. We pride ourselves upon giving satisfaction in every 
 department of owe paper ; and to fill that of fighting have en- 
 gaged two of those strapping heroes of the theatre, who figure 
 in the retinues of our ginger-bread kings and queens; now 
 hurry an old stuff petticoat on their backs, and strut senators 
 of Rome, or aldermen of London; — and now be- whisker their 
 muffin faces with burnt cork, and swagger right vahant war- 
 riors, armed cap-a-pie, in buckram. Should, therefore, any 
 great little man about town, take offence at our good-natured 
 villainy, though we intend to offend nobody under heaven, he 
 will please to apply at any hour after twelve o'clock, as our 
 champions wiU then be off duty at the theatre and ready for 
 anything. They have promised to fight "with or without 
 balls," — to give two tweaks of the nose for one — to submit to 
 be kicked, and to cudgel their applicant most heartily in • re- 
 turn; this being what we imderstand by "the satisfaction of a 
 gentleman." 
 
SALMAOUNDI. 31 
 
 NO. III.-FEIDAY. FEBRUAKY 13, 1807. 
 
 FEOM MY ELBOW-CHAIE. 
 
 As I delight in every thing novel and eccentric, and would 
 at any time give an old coat for a new idea, I am particularly 
 attentive to the manners and conversation of strangers, and 
 scarcely ever a traveler enters this city, whose appearance 
 promises any thing original, but by some means or another I 
 form an acquaintance with him. I must confess I often suffer 
 manifold afflictions from the intimacies thus contracted : my 
 curiosity is frequently punished by the stupid details of a 
 blockhead, or the shallow verbosity of a coxcomb. Now I 
 would prefer at any time to travel with an ox-team through a 
 Carolina sand-flat rather than plod through a heavy unmean- 
 ing conversation with the former; and as to the latter, I would 
 sooner hold sweet converse with the wheel of a knife grinder 
 than endure his monotonous chattering. In fact, the strangers 
 who flock to this most pleasant of all earthly cities, are gener- 
 ally mere birds of passage whose plumage is often gay enough, 
 I own, but their notes, "heaven save the mark," are as un- 
 musical as those of that classic night bird, which the ancients 
 humorously selected as the emblem of wisdom. Those from 
 the south, it is true, entertain me with their horses, equipages, 
 and puns : and it is excessively pleasant to hear a couple of 
 these four in hand gentlemen detail their exploits over a 
 bottle. Those from the east have often induced me to doubt 
 the existence of the wise men of yore, who are said to have 
 flourished in that quarter ; and as for those from parts beyond 
 seas — ohl my masters, ye shall hear more from me anon. 
 Heaven help this unhappy town ! — hath it not goslings enow 
 of its own hatching and rearing, that it must be overwhelmed 
 by such an inimdation of ganders from other climes? I would 
 not have any of my courteous and gentle readers suppose that 
 
32 SALMAOUNDI. 
 
 I am running a muck, full tilt, cut and slash upon all foreign- 
 ers indiscriminately. I have no national antipathies, though 
 related to the Cockloft family. As to honest John Bull, I 
 shake him heartily by the hand, assuring him that I love his 
 jolly countenance, and moreover am lineally descended from 
 him ; in proof of which I allege my invincible predilection for 
 roast beef and pudding. I therefore look upon all his children 
 as my kinsmen ; and I beg when I tackle a cockney I may not 
 be understood as trimmiag an Englishman ; they being very 
 distinct animals, as I shall clearly demonstrate in a future 
 number. If any one wishes to know my opinion of the Irish 
 and Scotch, he may find it in the characters of those two 
 nations, drawn by the first advocate of the age. But the 
 French, I must confess, are my favourites; and I have taken 
 more pains to argue my cousin Pindar out of his antipathy to 
 them, than I ever did about any other thing. When, there- 
 fore, I choose to hunt a Monsieur for my own particular 
 amusement, I beg it may not be asserted that I intend him 
 as a representative of his countrymen at large. Far from this 
 — I love the nation, as being a nation of right merry feUows, 
 possessing the true secret of being happy ; which is nothing 
 more than thinking of nothing, talking about any thing, and 
 laughing at every thing. I mean only to tune up those httle 
 thing-o-mys, who represent nobody but themselves ; who have 
 no national trait about them but their language, and who hop 
 about our town in swarms like little toads after a shower. 
 
 Among the few strangers whose acquaintance has enter- 
 tained me, I particularly rank the magnanimous Mustapha 
 EuB-A-DUB Kbli Khan, a most illustrious captain of a ketch, 
 who figured some time since, in our fashionable circles, at the 
 head of a ragged regiment of Tripolitan prisoners. His con- 
 versation was to me a perpetual feast ; — I chuckled with in- 
 ward pleasure at his whimsical mistakes and unaffected ob- 
 servations on men and manners ; and I rolled each odd con- 
 ceit "like a sweet morsel under my tongue." 
 
 Whether Mustapha was captivated by my iron-bound 
 physiognomy, or flattered by the attentions which I paid him, 
 I won't determine ; but I so far gained his confidence, that, at 
 his departure, he presented me with a bundle of papers, con- 
 taining, among other articles, several copies of letters, which 
 he had written to his friends at Tripoli. — The following is a 
 translation of one of them.— The original is in Arabic-Greek; 
 but by the assistance of Will Wizard, who imderstands all 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 33 
 
 languages, not excepting that manufactured by Psalmanzar, I 
 have been enabled to accompUsh a tolerable translation. We 
 should have found little difficulty in rendering it into English, 
 had it not been for Mustapha's confounded pot-hooks and 
 trammels. 
 
 LETTER FEOM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, 
 
 CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE- 
 DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLL 
 
 Thou wilt learn from this letter, most illustrious disciple of 
 Mahomet, that I have for some time resided in New- York; 
 the most pohshed, vast, and magnificent city of the United 
 States of America. But what to me are its deUghts ! I wan- 
 der a captive through its splendid streets, I turn a heavy eye 
 on every rising day that beholds me banished from my coun- 
 try. The Chi'istian husbands here lament most bitterly any 
 short absence from home, though they leave but one wife be- 
 hind to lament their departure ; — what then must be the feel- 
 ings of thy unhappy kinsman, while thus lingering at an im- 
 measurable distance from three-and-twenty of the most lovely 
 and obedient wives iu all TripoU ! Oh, Allah 1 shall thy servant 
 never again return to his native land, nor behold his beloved 
 wives, who beam on his memory beautiful as the rosy mom of 
 the east, and graceful as Mahomet's camel ! 
 
 Yet beautiful, oh, most puissant slave-driver, as are my 
 wives, they are far exceeded by the women of this country. 
 Even those who run about the streets with bare arms and necks 
 {et cetera) whose habiliments are too scanty to protect them 
 either from the inclemency of the season, or the scrutinizing 
 glances of the curious, and who it would seem belong to no- 
 body, are lovely as the houris that people the elysium of true 
 behevers. If, then, such as run wild in the highways, and 
 whom no one cares to appropriate, are thus beauteous ; what 
 must be the charms of those who are shut up in the seragHos 
 and never permitted to go abroad ! surely the region of beauty, 
 the valley of the graces, can contain nothing so inimitably fair 1 
 
 But, notwithstanding the charms of these infidel women, 
 they are apt to have one fault, which is extremely troublesome 
 and inconvenient. Wouldst thou believe it, Asem, I have 
 
34 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 been positively assured by a famous dervise, or doctor as he is 
 here called, that at least one-fifth part of them— have souls ! 
 incredible as it may seem to thee, I am the more inclined to 
 beheve them in possession of this monstrous superfluity, from 
 my own little experience, and from the information which I 
 have derived from others. In walking the streets I have 
 actually seen an exceedingly good-looking woman with soul 
 enough to box her husband's ears to his heart's content, and 
 my very whiskers trembled with indignation at the abject 
 state of these wretched infidels. I am told, moreover, that 
 some of the women have soul enough to usurp the breeches of 
 the men, but these I suppose are married and kept close ; for I 
 have not, in my rambles, met with any so extravagantly 
 accoutred ; others, I am informed, have soul enough to swear ! 
 — ^yea! by the beard of the great Omar, who prayed three 
 times to each of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand 
 prophets of our most holy faith, and who never swore but 
 once in his life — they actually swear ! 
 
 Get thee to the mosque, good Asem ! return thanks to our 
 most holy prophet that he has been thus mindful of the com- 
 fort of all true Mussulmen, and has given them wives with no 
 more souls than cats and dogs and other necessary animals of, 
 the household. 
 
 Thou wUt doubtless be anxious to learn our reception in this 
 country, and how we were treated by a people whom we have 
 been accustomed to consider as unenlightened barbarians. 
 
 On landing, we were waited upon to our lodgings, I suppose 
 according to the directions of the municipality, by a vast and 
 respectable escort of boys and negroes; who shouted and 
 threw up their hats, doubtless to do honour to the magnani- 
 mous Mustapha, captain of a ketch ; they were somewhat rag- 
 ged and dirty in their equipments, but this we attributed to 
 their repubhcan simplicity. One of them, in the zeal of ad- 
 miration, threw, an old shoe, which gave thy friend rather an 
 ungentle salutation on one side of the head, whereat I was not 
 a little offended, untU the interpreter informed us that this 
 was the customary manner in which great men were honoured 
 in this country ; and that the more distinguished they were, 
 the more they were subjected to the attacks and peltings of 
 the mob. Upon this I bowed my head three times, with my 
 hands to my turban, and made a speech in Arabic-Greek, which 
 gave great satisfaction and occasioned a shower of old shoes, 
 hats, and so forth, that was exceedingly refreshing to us all. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 35 
 
 Thou wilt not as yet expect that I should give thee an 
 account of the laws and politics of this country. I wiU reserve 
 them for some future letter, when I shall be more experienced 
 in their complicated and seemingly contradictory nature. 
 
 This empire is governed by a grand and most puissant ba- 
 shaw, whom they dignify r/ith the title of president. He is 
 chosen by persons who are chosen by an assembly elected by 
 the people — hence the mob is called the sovereign people ; and 
 the country, free ; the body politic doubtless resembling a ves- 
 sel, which is best governed by its tail. The present bashaw is 
 a very plain old gentleman— something, they say, of a humour- 
 ist, as he amuses himself with impaling butterflies and pickling 
 tadpoles; he is rather decUning in popularity, having given 
 great offence by wearing red breeches, and tying his horse to a 
 post. The people of the United States have assured me that 
 they themselves are the most enlightened nation under the 
 sun ; but thou knowest that the barbarians of the desert, who 
 assemble at the stmimer solstice to shoot their arrows at that 
 glorious luminary, in order to extinguish his burning rays, 
 make precisely the same boast;— which of them have the supe- 
 rior claim, I shall not attempt to decide. 
 
 I have observed, with some degree of surprise, that the men 
 of this country do not seem in haste to accommodate them- 
 selves even with the single wife which alone the laws permit 
 them to marry ; this backwardness is probably owing to the 
 misfortune of their absolutely having no female mutes among 
 them. Thou knowest how invaluable are these sUent compan- 
 ions ; — what a price is given for them in the east, and what en- 
 tertaining wives they make. What deUghtful entertainment 
 arises from beholding the silent eloquence of their signs and 
 gestures; but a wife possessed both of a tongue and a soul- 
 monstrous! monstrous 1 is it astonishing that these unhappy 
 infidels should shrink from a imion with a woman so prepos- 
 terously endowed. 
 
 Thou hast doubtless read in the works of Abul Faraj, the 
 Arabian historian, the tradition which mentions that the 
 muses were once upon the point of falling together by the ears 
 about the admission of a tenth among their number, until she 
 assured them by signs that she was dumb; whereupon they 
 received her with great rejoicing. I shoiild, perhaps, inform 
 thee that there are but nine Christian muses, who were for- 
 merly pagans, but have since been converted, and that in this 
 country we never hear of a tenth, unless some crazy poet 
 
36 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 wishes to pay a hyperbolical compliment to his mistress; on 
 which occasion it goes hard, but she figures as a tenth muse, 
 or fourth grace, even though she should be more illiterate than 
 a Hottentot, and more ungraceful than a dancing-bear I Since 
 my arrival in this country I have met with not less than a 
 hundred of tliese supernumerary muses and graces — and may 
 Allah preserve me from ever meeting with any more I 
 
 When I have studied this people more profoundly, I will 
 write thee again; in the mean time, watch over my house- 
 hold, and do not beat my beloved wives unless you catch them 
 with their noses out at the window. Though far distant and a 
 slave, let me live in thy heart as thou livest in mine : — think 
 not, O friend of my soul, that the splendours of this luxurious 
 capital, its gorgeous palaces, its stupendous masques, and the 
 beautiful females who run wUd in herds about its streets, can 
 obliterate thee from my remembrance. Thy name shall still 
 be mentioned in the flve-and-twenty prayers which I offer up 
 daily ; and may our great prophet, after bestowing on thee all 
 the blessings of this life, at length, in good old age, lead thee 
 gently by the hand to enjoy the dignity of bashaw of three 
 tails in the bhssful bowers of Eden. 
 
 MUSTAPHA. 
 
 FASHIONS. 
 
 By Anthony Everoeeen, Gent. 
 
 the following article is furnished me by a yottng lady op 
 unquestionable taste, and who is the oracle op fashion 
 and frippery, being deeply initiated into all the mys- 
 teries op the toilet, she has promised me from time to 
 time a similar detail. 
 
 Mrs. Toole has for some time reigned unrivalled in the 
 fashionable world, and had the supreme direction of caps, bon- 
 nets, feathers, flowers, and tinsel. She has dressed and un- 
 dressed our ladies just as she pleased ; now loading them with 
 velvet and wadding, now turning them adrift upon the world 
 to run shivering through the streets with scarcely a covering 
 
 to their backs ; and now obliging them to drag a long train 
 
 at their heels, hke the tail of a paper kite. Her despotic sway, 
 however, threatens to be limited. A dangerous rival has 
 
SALMAaUNDI. 37 
 
 sprung up in the person of Madame BoucnAED, an intrepid 
 little woman, fresh from the headquarters of fashion and 
 folly, and -who has hurst, like a second Bonaparte, upon the 
 fashionable world. — Mrs. Toole, notwithstanding, ■ seems de- 
 termined to dispute her ground bravely for the honour of old 
 England. The ladies have begun to arrange themselves under 
 the barmer of one or other of these heroines of the needle, and 
 everything portends open war. Madame Bouchard marches 
 gallantly to the field, flourishing a flaming red robe for a 
 standard, "flouting the skies;" and Mrs. Toole, no ways dis- 
 mayed, sallies out under cover of a forest of artificial flowers, 
 like Malcolm's host. Both parties possess great merit, and 
 both deserve the victory. Mrs. Toole charges the highest — ^but 
 Madame Bouchard makes the lowest courtesy. Madame 
 Bouchard is a little short lady — nor is there any hope of her 
 growing larger; but then she is perfectly genteel, and so is 
 Mrs. Toole. Mrs. Toole lives in Broadway, and Madame 
 Bouchard ia Courtlandt-street ; but Madame atones for the ia- 
 feiiority of her stand by making two courtesies to Mrs. Toole's 
 one. and talking French like an angel. Mrs. Toole is the best 
 looking — ^but Madame Bouchard wears a most bewitching little 
 scmbby wig. — Mrs. Toole is the tallest — but Madame Bouchard 
 has the longest nose.— Mrs. Toole is fond of roast beef— but 
 Madame is loyal in her adherence to onions : in short, so equal- 
 ly are the merits of the two ladies balanced, that there is no 
 judging which will "kick the beam." It, however, seems to 
 be the prevailing opinion that Madame Bouchard wfll carry 
 the day, because she wears a wig, has a long nose, talks 
 Trehch, loves onions, and does not charge above ten times as 
 much for a thing as it is worth. 
 
 "UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THESE HIGH PPIESTESSES OF THE 
 BEAU-MONDE, THE FOLLOWING IS THE FASHIONABLE MORNING 
 DRESS FOR WALKING. 
 
 If the weather be very cold, a thin muslin gown, or frock, is 
 most advisable ; because it agrees with the season, being per- 
 fectly cool. The neck, arms, and particularly the elbows bare, 
 in order that they may be agreeably painted and mottled by 
 Mr. John Frost, nose-painter-general, of the colour of Castile 
 soap. Shoes of kid, the thinnest that can possibly be procured 
 —as they tend to promote colds, and make a lady look interest- 
 jnj-__(j. e., grizzly.) Picnic silk stockings, with lace clocks, 
 
38 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 flesh-coloured are most fashionable, as they have the appear- 
 ance of bare legs— nudity being all the rage. The stockings 
 carelessly bespattered with mud, to agree with the gown, which 
 should bo bordered about three inches deep with the most fash- 
 ionable coloured mud that can be found : the ladies permitted 
 to hold up their trains, after they have swept two or three 
 
 streets, in order to show the clocks of their stockings. The 
 
 shawl, scarlet, crimson, flame, orange, salmon, or any other 
 combustible or brimstone colour, thrown over one shoulder; 
 Uke an Indian blanket, with one end dragging on the ground. 
 
 N. B. If the ladies have not a red shawl at hand, a red petti- 
 coat turned topsy-turvy, over the shoulders, would do just as 
 well. This is called being dressed a la drabble. 
 
 When the ladies do not go abroad of a morning, the usual 
 chimney-corner dress is a dotted, spotted, striped, or cross- 
 barred gown;— a yellowish, whitish, smokish, dirty -coloured 
 shawl, and the hair curiously ornamented with Uttle bits of 
 newspapers, or pieces of a letter from a dear friend. ' This is 
 called the "Cinderella-dress." 
 
 The recipe for a fuU dress is as foUows : take of spider-net, 
 crape, satin, gymp, cat-gut, gauze, whale-bone, lace, bobbin, 
 ribands, and artificial flowers, as m.uch as wiU rig out the con- 
 gregation of a village church ; to these, add as many epangles, 
 beads, and gew-gaws, as would be suflicient to turn the heads 
 of all the fashionable fair ones of Nootka-sound. Let Mrs. 
 Toole or Madame Bouchard patch aU these articles together, 
 one upon another, dash them plentifully over with stars, 
 bugles, and tinsel, and they will altogether form a dress, 
 which hung upon a lady's back, cannot fail cf supplying the 
 place of beauty, youth, and grace, and of reminding the spec- 
 tator of that celebrated region of finery, called Rag Fair. 
 
 One of the greatest sources of amusement incident to our 
 humourous knight errantry, is to ramble about and hear the 
 Various conjectures of the town respecting our worships, whom 
 every body pretends to know as well as Falstaff did Prince Hal 
 at Gads-hill. We have sometimes seen a sapient, sleepy fellow, 
 on being tickled with a straw, make a furious effort and fancy 
 he had fairly caught a gnat in his grasp ; so, that many-headed 
 monster, the pubMc, who, with all its heads, is, we fear, sadly 
 off for brains, has, after long hovering, come souse down, like 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 39 
 
 a king^flslier, on the authors of SalmagiiDdi, and caught them 
 as certainly as the aforesaid honest fellow caught the gnat. 
 
 Would that we were rich enough to give every one of our 
 numerous readers a cent, as a reward for their ingenuity ! not 
 that they have really conjectured within a thousand leagues of 
 the truth, but that we consider it a great stretch of ingenuity 
 even to have guessed wrong ; and that we hold ourselves much 
 oMged to them for having taken the trouble to guess at all. 
 
 One of the most tickling, dear, mischievous pleasures of this 
 life is to laugh in one's sleeve — to sit snug in the comer, im.- 
 noticed and Tinknown, and hear the wise men of Gotham, who 
 are profound judges of horse-flesh, pronounce, from the style 
 of our work, who are the authors. This listening incog., and 
 receiving a hearty praise over another man's back, is a situa- 
 tion so celestially whimsical, that we have done little else than 
 laugh in our sleeve ever since our first nmnber was published. 
 
 The town has at length allayed the titUations of curiosity, 
 by fixing on two young gentlemen of hterary talents — that is 
 to say, they are equal to the composition of a newspaper squib, 
 a hodge podge criticism, or some such trifle, and may occasion- 
 ally raise a smile by their effusions; but pardon us, sweet sirs, 
 if we modestly doubt your capability of supporting the burthen 
 of Salmagundi, or of keeping up a laugh for a whole fortnight, 
 as we have done, and intend to do, until the whole town 
 becomes a community of laughing philosophers Uke ourselves. 
 We have no intention, however, of undervaluing the abilities 
 of these two young men, whom we verily believe, according to 
 common acceptation, young men of promise. 
 
 Were we ill-natured, we might publish something that 
 would get our representatives into difficulties; but far bo it 
 from us to do anything to the injury of persons to whom we 
 are under such obligations. 
 
 While they stand before us, we, like little Teucer, behind the 
 sevenfold shield of Ajax, can launch unseen our sportive 
 arrows, which we trust wiu never inflict a wound, unless like 
 his they fly "heaven directed," to some conscious-struck 
 bosom. 
 
 Another marvellous great source of pleasure to us,' is the 
 abuse our work has received from several wooden gentlemen, 
 whose censures we covet more than ever we did any thing in 
 our lives. The moment we declared open war against folly 
 and stupidness, we expected no quarter; and to provoke a con^ 
 federacy of all the blockheads in town. For it is one of our 
 
40 SALMAOUNDT. 
 
 indisputable facts that so sure as you catch a gander by the 
 taU, the whole flock, geese, goslings, one and all, have a fellow- 
 feeling on the occasion, and begin to cackle and hiss like so many 
 devils bewitched. As we have a profound respect for these 
 ancient and respectable birds, on the score of their once having 
 saved the capitol, we hereby declare that we mean no offence 
 to the aforesaid confederacy. We have heard in our walks 
 such criticisms on Salmagundi, as almost induced a belief that 
 foUy had here, as in the east, her moments of inspired idiot- 
 ism. Every siUy royster has, as iZ by an instinctive sense of 
 anticipated danger, joiued in the cry; and condemned us 
 without mercy. All is thus as it should be. It would have 
 mortified us very sensibly, had we been disappointed in this 
 particular, as we should have been apprehensive that our 
 shafts had fallen to the ground, innocent of the "blood or 
 brains" of a single numbskull. Our efforts have been crowned 
 with wonderful success. All the queer fish, the grubs, the 
 flats, the noddies, and the live oak and timber gentlemen, are 
 pointing their empty guns at us ; and we are threatened with a 
 most puissant confederacy of the "pigmies and cranes," and 
 other "light militia," backed by the heavy armed artillery of 
 dullness and stupidity. The veriest dreams of our most san- 
 guine moments are thus realized. We have no fear of the 
 censures of the wise, the good, or the fair; for they will ever be 
 sacred from our attacks. We reverence the wise, love the 
 good, and adore the fair ; we declare ourselves champions in 
 their cause; — in the cause of morality; — and we throw our 
 gauntlet to all the world besides. 
 
 While we profess and feel the same indifference to pubUc 
 applause as at first, we most earnestly invite the attacks and 
 censures of aU the wooden warriors of this sensible city; and 
 especially of that distinguished and learned body, heretofore 
 celebrated under the appellation of "the North-river society." 
 
 The thrice valiant and renowned Don Quixote never made 
 such work among the wool-clad warriors of Trapoban, or the 
 puppets of the itinerant showman, as we promise to make 
 among these fine fellows; and we pledge ourselves to the 
 pubHc in general, and the Albany skippers in particular, that 
 the North river shall not be set on fire this winter at least, for 
 we shall give the authors of that nefarious scheme, ample em- 
 ployment for some time to come. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 41 
 
 PEOCLAMATION", 
 
 FROM THE MILL OP PINDAK COCKLOFT, ESQ. 
 
 To all the young belles who enliven our scene, 
 From ripe five-and-forty, to blooming fifteen; 
 Who racket at routs, and who rattle at plays. 
 Who visit, and fidget, and dance out their days : 
 Who conquer all hearts, with a shot from the eye. 
 Who freeze with a frown, and who thaw with a sigh: — 
 To all those bright youths who embeUish the age. 
 Whether young boys, or old boys, or numskull or sage: 
 Whether dull dogs, who criage at their mistress' feet, 
 Who sigh and who whine, and who try to look sweet ; 
 Whether tough dogs, who squat down stock stiU ia a row 
 And play wooden gentlemen stuck up for a show; 
 Or SAD dogs, who glory in running their rigs, 
 Now dash in their sleighs, and now whirl in their gigs; 
 Who riot at Dyde's on imperial champaign, 
 And then scour our city — the peace to maintain : 
 
 To whoe'er it concerns or may happen to meet. 
 By these presents their worships I lovingly greet. 
 Now KNOW YE, that I, PiNDAE CocKLOFT, esquire, 
 Am laureate, appointed at special desire ; — 
 A censor, self-dubb'd, to admonish the fair. 
 And tenderly take the town under my care. 
 
 I'm a ci-devant beau, cousin Launcelot has said — 
 A remnant of habits long vanish'd and dead : 
 But still, though my heart dwells with rapture sublime, 
 On the fashions and customs which reign'd in my prime, 
 I yet can perceive— and still candidly praise, 
 Some maxims and manners of these "latter days ; " 
 Stni own that some wisdom and beauty appears. 
 Though almost entomb'd in the rubbish of years. 
 
 No fierce nor tyranmcal cynic am I, 
 Who frown on each foible I chance to espy; 
 Who pounce on a novelty, just like a kite, 
 And tear up a victim through malice or spite: 
 Who expose to the scoffs of an ill-natured crew, 
 A trembler for starting a whim that is new. 
 
42 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 No, no— I shall cautiously hold up my glass, 
 To the sweet little blossoms who heedlessly pass; 
 My remarks not too pointed to wound or offend, 
 Nor so vague as to miss their benevolent end : 
 Each innocent fashion shaU have its full sway ; 
 New modes shall arise to astonish Broadway : 
 Red hats and red shawls still Olumine the town. 
 And each beUe, Uke a bon-fire, blaze up and down. 
 Fair spirits, who brighten the gloom of our days, 
 Who cheer this dtdl scene with your heavenly rays, 
 No mortal can love you more firmly and true, 
 From the crown of the head, to the sole of yoar shoe. 
 I'm old fashioned, 'tis true, — but stO runs in my heart 
 That affectionate stream, to which youth gave the start, 
 More calm in its current — yet potent in force ; 
 Less ruffled by gales — but still stedfast in course. 
 Though the lover, enraptur'd, no longer appears, — 
 'Tis the guide and the guardian enlighten'd by years. 
 AU ripen'd, and meUow'd, and soften'd by time, 
 The asperities pohsh'd which chafed in my prime ; 
 I am fully prepared for that deKcate end, 
 The fair one's instructor, companion and friend. 
 — And should I perceive you in fashion's gay dance, 
 Allured by the frippery mongers of France, 
 Expose your weak frames to a chiU wintry sky, 
 To be nipp'd by its frosts, to be torn from the eye; 
 My soft admonitions shall fall on your ear — 
 Shall whisper those parents to whom you are dear — 
 ShaU warn you of hazards you heedlessly run, 
 And sing of those fair ones whom frost has undone ; 
 Bright suns that would scarce on our horizon dawn. 
 Ere shrouded from sight, they were early withdrawn; 
 Gay sylphs, who have floated in circles below. 
 As puBe in their souls, and as transient as snow ; 
 Sweet roses, that bloom'd and decay'd to my eye, 
 And of forms that have flitted and pass'd to the sky. 
 But as to those brainless pert bloods o * our town, 
 Those sprigs of the ton who run decency down ; 
 Who lounge and who lout, and who booby about, 
 No knowledge within, and no manners without ; 
 Who stare at each beauty with insolent eyes ; 
 Who rail at those morals their fathers woiild prize ; 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 43 
 
 Who are loud at the play— and who impiously dare 
 
 To come in their cups to the routs of the fair; 
 
 I shall hold up m.y mirror, to let them survey 
 
 The figures they cut as they dash it away : 
 
 Should my good-humoured verse no amendment produce, 
 
 Like scare-crows, at least, they shall still be of use; 
 
 I shall stitch them, in effigy, up in my rhyme, 
 
 And hold them aloft through the progress of time, 
 
 As figures of fun to make the folks laugh. 
 
 Like that b ^h of an angel erected by Pafif, 
 
 "What shtops," as he says, " all de people what come- 
 What smiles on dem all, and what peats on de trum." 
 
44 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 NO. IV -TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, ISOT. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 Perhaps there is no class of men to which the curious and 
 literary are more indebted than travellers;—! mean travel- 
 mongers, who write whole volumes about themselves, their 
 horses and their servants, interspersed with anecdotes of inn- 
 keepers, — droll sayings of stage-drivers, and interesting mem- 
 oirs of— -the Lord knows who. They will give you a full 
 account of a city, its manners, customs, and manufactures; 
 though, perhaps, all their knowledge of it was obtained by a 
 peep from their inn-windows, and an interesting conversation 
 with the landlord or the waiter. America has had its share 
 of these buzzards: and in the name of my countrymen I 
 return them profound thanks for the compliments they have 
 lavished upon us, and the variety of particulars concerning 
 our own country, which we should never have discovered 
 without their assistance. 
 
 Influenced by sucn sentiments, I am delighted to find that 
 the Cockloft family, among its other whimsical and monstrous 
 productions, is about to be enriched with a genuine travel- 
 writer. This is no less a personage than Mr. Jeremy Cock- 
 loft, the only son and darling pride of my cousin, Mr. 
 Christopher Cockloft. I should have said Jeremy Cockloft, 
 the younger, as he so styles himself, by way of distinguishing 
 him from II Signoee Jeremy Cookloftico, a gouty old 
 gentleman, who flourished about the time that PHny the elder 
 was smoked to death with the fire and brimstone of Vesuvius ; 
 and whose travels, if he ever wrote any, are now lost for ever 
 to the world. Jeremy is at present in his one-and-twentieth 
 year, and a young fellow of wonderful quick parts, if you 
 will trust to the word of his father, who, having begotten him, 
 should be the best judge of the matter. He is the oracle of 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 45 
 
 the family, dictates to his sisters on every occasion, thovigh 
 they are some dozen or more years older than himself: — and 
 never did son give mother hetter advice than Jeremy. 
 
 As old Cockloft was determined his son should be both a 
 scholar and a gentleman, he took great pains with his educa- 
 tion, which was completed at our university, where he became 
 exceedingly expert in quizzing his teachers and playing bil- 
 liards. No student made better squibs and crackers to \>\avr 
 up the chemical professor; no one chalked more ludicrous 
 caricatures on the walls of the college; and none were more 
 adroit in shaving pigs and climbing Hghtning-rods. He more- 
 over learned all the letters of the Greek alphabet ; could demon- 
 strate that water never '"of its own accord "rose above the 
 level of its source, and that air was certainly the principle of 
 life ; for he had been entertained with the humane experiment 
 of a cat worried to death in an air-pump. He once shook 
 down the ash-house, by an artificial earthquake; and nearly 
 blew his sister Barbara, and her cat, out of the window with 
 thundering powder. He likewise boasts exceedingly of being 
 thoroughly acquainted with the composition of Lacedemonian 
 black broth; and once made a pot of it, which had woU-nigh 
 poisoned the whole family, and actually threw the cook-maid 
 into convulsions. But above all, he values himself upon his 
 logic, has the old college conundrum of the cat with three tails 
 at his finger's ends, and often hampers his father with his syl- 
 logisms, to the great delight of the old gentleman; who con- 
 siders the major, minor, and conclusions, as almost equal in 
 argument to the pulley, the wedge, and the lever, in mechanics. 
 In fact, my cousin Cockloft was once nearly annihilated with 
 astonishment, on hearing Jeremy trace his derivation of Mango 
 from Jeremiah King;— as Jeremiah King, Jei-ry King! Jerkin 
 Girkin ! cucumber. Mango ! in short, had Jeremy been a student 
 at Oxford or Cambridge, he would, in all probability, have been 
 promoted to the dignity of a senior wrangler. By this sketch, I 
 mean no disparagement to the abilities of other students of our 
 college, for I have no doubt that every commencement ushers 
 into society luminaries full as brilliant as Jeremy Cockloft the 
 younger. 
 
 Having made a very pretty speech on graduating, to a numer- 
 ous assemblage of old folks and young ladies, who all declared 
 that he was a very fine young man, and made very handsome 
 gestures, Jeremy was seized with a great desire to see, or rather 
 to be seen bv the world ; and as his father was anxious to give 
 
46 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 Mm every possible advantage, it was determined Jeremy should 
 visit foreign parts. In consequence of this resolution, he has 
 spent a matter of three or four months in visiting strange 
 places ; and in the course of his travels has tarried some few 
 days at the splendid metropoUs' of Albany and Philadelphia. 
 
 Jeremy has travelled as every modern man of sense shoidd 
 do ; that is, he judges of things by the sample next at hand ; if 
 he has ever any doubt on a subject, always decides against the 
 city where he happens to sojourn; and invariably takes Tiome, 
 as the standard by which to direct his judgment. 
 
 Going into his room the other day, when he happened to be 
 absent, I found a manuscript volume lying on his table; and 
 was overjoyed to find it contained notes and hints for a book 
 of travels which he intends publishing. He seems to have 
 taken a late fashionable travel-monger for his model, and I 
 have no doubt his work will be equally instructive and amusing 
 with that of his prototype. The following are some extracts, 
 which may not prove uninteresting to my readers. 
 
 MEMORAJSTDUMS FOR ATOUE, TO BE ENTITLED "THE 
 STRANGER IN NEW JERSEY; OR, COCKNEY TRAVEL- 
 LING." 
 
 BY JEEEMY COCKLOFT, THE YOUNGER. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 The man in the moon "^ — preparations for departure— Mats to 
 travellers about packing their trunks t — straps, buckles, and 
 bed-cords — case of pistols, a la cockney— &ve trunks— three 
 bandboxes-^ cocked hat— and a medicine chest, a la Francaise 
 —parting advice of my two sisters — quere, why old maids are 
 so particular in their cautions against naughty women — descrip- 
 tion of Powles-Hook ferry-boats — might be converted into gun- 
 boats, and defend our port equally well with Albany sloops— 
 Brom, the black ferryman— Charon — river Styx— ghosts ;— 
 major Hunt — ^good story— feri-yage nine-pence ;— city of Harsi- 
 mus— built on the spot where the folk once danced on their 
 stumps, while the devil fiddled ;— quere, why do the Harsimites 
 
 *vide Carr'a Stranger in Ireland. t vide Weld. 
 
SALMAOVIWI. 47 
 
 talk Dutch? — story of the tower of Babel, and confusion of 
 tongues — get into the stage — driver a wag — famous fellow for 
 running stage races— killed three passengers and crippled nine 
 in the course of his practice— philosophical reasons why stage 
 drivers love grog— causeway — ditch on each side for folk to 
 tumble into — famous place for skilly-pots ; PhUadelphians call 
 I 'em tarapins — roast them under the ashes as we do potatoes — 
 quere, may not this be the reason that the PhUadelphians are 
 all turtle-heads ?— Hackensack bridge-— good painting of a blue 
 horse jumping over a mountain — wonder who it was painted 
 by ; — mem. to ask the Baron de Grusto about it on my return ; 
 — Eattle-snake hOl, so called from abounding with butterflies ; 
 — salt marsh, surmounted here and there by a soUtary hay- 
 stack; — ^more tarapins — wonder why the PhUadelphians don't 
 estabhsh a fishery here, and get a patent for it ; — bridge over 
 the Passaic — ^rate of toll — description of toll-boards — toll man 
 had but one eye — story how it is possible he may have lost the 
 other— pence-table, etc.* 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Newark— noted for its fine breed of fat mosquitoes— sting 
 through the thickest boot t— story about Gallynipers— Archer 
 Gifford and his man CaHban— jolly fat fellows;— a knowing 
 traveUer always judges of every thing by the inn-keepers and 
 waiters ; I set down Newark people all fat as butter— learned 
 dissertation on Archer Gifford's green coat, with philosophical 
 reasons why the Newarkites wear red worsted night-caps, and 
 turn their noses to the south when the wind blows— Newark 
 academy full of windows — sunshine excellent to make little 
 boys grow— Elizabeth-town— fine girls —vile mosquitoes— plenty 
 of oysters— quere, have oysters any feeling ?— good story about 
 the fox catching them by his tail— ergo, foxes might be of great 
 use in the pearl-fishery ; —landlord member of the legislature — 
 treats every body who has a vote — mem., all the inn-keepers 
 members of legislature in New-Jersey ; Bridge-town, vulgarly 
 called Spank-town, from a story of a quondam parson and his 
 wife — ^real name, according to Linkmn Fidehus, Bridge-town, 
 from bridge, a contrivance to get dry shod over a river or 
 
 * vide Carr. t vide Weld. 
 
 t vide Carr. vide Moore, vide Weld, vide Parkinson, vide Priest, vide Linkum 
 Fidelius, and vide Messrs. Tag, Rag, and Bobtail. 
 
48 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 brook ; and tovim, an appellation given in America to the acci- 
 dental assemblage of a church, a tavern, and a blacksmith's 
 shop— Linkum as right as my left leg;— Eahway-river— good 
 place for gun-boats — wonder why Mr. Jefferson don't send a 
 river fleet there to protect the hay-vessels ? — Woodbridge — land- 
 lady mending her husband's breeches — sublime apostrophe to 
 conjugal affection and the fair sex ;*— Woodbridge famous for 
 its crab-fisheiy — sentimental correspondence bistween a crab 
 and a lobster — digression to Abelard and Eloisa; — mem., when 
 the moon is in Pisces, she plays the devil with the crabs. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Brunswick— oldest town in the state— division-line between 
 two counties in the middle of the street ;— posed a lawyer with 
 the case of a man standing with one foot in each county — 
 wanted, to know in which he was domicil — ^lawyer couldn't teU 
 for the soul of him — mem., aU the New-Jersey lawyers nums.; 
 — Miss Hay's boarding-school— young ladies not allowed to eat 
 mustard— and why? — fat story of a mustard-pot, with a good 
 saying of Ding-Dong's ; — Vernon's tavern — fine place to sleep, 
 if the noise would let you — another Cahban !— "Vernon sfew-eyed 
 — people of Brunswick, of course, aU squint ; — Drake's tavern 
 — fine old blade — wears square buckles in his shoes — telis 
 bloody long stories about last war — people, of course, all do the 
 same ; Hook'em Snivy, the famous fortune-teller, born here — 
 cotemporary with mother Shoulders— particulars of his his- 
 tory — died one day — hnes to his memory, luhich found their 
 way into my pocfcet-booJc ; i—melancholj reflections on the 
 death of great men — beautiful epitaph on myself. 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Princeton— college — ^professors wear boots !— students fa- 
 mous for their love of a jest— set the coUege on fire, and burnt 
 out the professors ; an excellent joke, but not worth repeating 
 — mem., American students very much addicted to burning 
 down colleges— reminds me of a good story, nothing at all to 
 the purpose — two societies in the coUege— good notion — en- 
 courages emulation, and makes little boys fight; — students 
 famous for their eating and erudition— saw two at the tavern, 
 
 * vide The Sentimental Kotzebue. 
 t vide Carr and Blind Bet ! 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 49 
 
 who had just got their allowance of spending-money — laid it 
 
 aU out in a supper— got fuddled, and d d the professors for 
 
 nincoms. N. B. Southern gentlemen — Church-yard— apos- 
 trophe to grim death — saw a cow feeding on a grave— metem- 
 psychosis — who knows but the cow may have been eating up 
 the soul of one of my ancestors — made me melancholy and 
 pensive for fifteen minutes; — man planting cabbages* — won- 
 dered how he could plant them so straight — method of mole- 
 catching — and all that— quere, whether it would not be a good 
 notion to ring their noses as we do pigs — mem., to propose it to 
 the American Agricultural Society — get a premium, perhaps ; 
 — commencement — students give a ball and supper — company 
 from New- York, Philadelphia, and Albany — gi-oat contest 
 which spoke the best English— Albanians vociferous in their 
 demand for sturgeon — Philadelphians gave the preference to 
 racoon t and splacnuncs — gave them a long dissertation on the 
 phlegmatic nature of a goose's gizzard — students can't dance- 
 always set off with the wrong foot foremost — Duport's opinion 
 on that subject — Sir Christopher Hatton the first man who 
 ever turned out his toes in dancing — great favourite with 
 Queen Bess on that account— Sir Walter Raleigh — good story 
 about his smoking — ^his descent into New Spain — El Dorado — 
 Candid — Dr. Pangloss — Miss Cunegunde — earthquake at Lis- 
 bon — Baron of Thundertentronck — Jesuits — Monks — Cardinal 
 Woolsey— Pope Joan — Tom Jefferson— Tom Paine, and Tom 
 the whew ! N.B. — Students got drunk as usual. 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Left Princeton— country finely diversified with sheep and 
 hay-stacks J — saw a man riding alone in a wagon ! why the 
 deuce didn't the blockhead ride in a chair? fellow must be a 
 fool— particular account of the construction of wagons— carts, 
 wheelbarrows and quail-traps— saw a large flock of crows- 
 concluded there must be a dead horse in the neighbourhood- 
 mem, country remarkable for crows— won't let the horses die 
 in peace— anecdote of a jury of crows— stopped to give the 
 horses water— good-looking man came up, and asked me if I 
 had seen his wife? heavens! thought I, how strange it is that 
 this virtuous man should ask me about his wife— story of Cain 
 and Abel— stage-driver took a swig—xa&m.. set down all the 
 
 * vide Carr. + vide Priest. } vide Carr. 
 
50 SALMAGUNDI^ 
 
 people as drunkards— old house had mofts on the top— swallows i 
 built in the roof— better place than old men's beards— story 
 about that— derivation of words hippy, hippy, hippy and shoo- 
 pig * — negro driver could not write his own name— languishing 
 state of literature in this country ; t — philosophical inquiry of 
 'Sbidlikens, why the Americans are so much inferior to the 
 nobility of Cheapside and Shoreditch, and why they do not eat 
 plum-pudding on Sundays; — superfine rBflections about any 
 thing. 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Teenton — built above the head of nav\gation to encourage 
 commerce — capital of the State | — only wants a castle, a bay, a 
 mountain, a sea^^ and a volcano, to bear a strong resemblance 
 to the Bay of Naples— supreme court sitting— fat chief justice- 
 used to get asleep on the bench after dinner — ^gave judgment, 
 I suppose, like Pilate's wife, from his dreams— reminded me of 
 Justice Bridlegoose deciding by a throw of a die, and of the 
 oracle of the holy bottle — attempted to kiss the chambermaid 
 — boxed my ears tiU they rung like our th£'atre-bell — girl had 
 lost one tooth— mem. aU the American ladies prudes, and have 
 bad teeth; — Anacreon Moore's opinion on the matter. — State- 
 house — fine place to see the sturgeons jump up— quere, whether 
 sturgeons jump up by an impulse of the tail, or whether they 
 bounce up from the bottom by the elasticity of their noses— 
 Linkum Fidelius of the latter opinion — I too — sturgeons' nose 
 capital for tennis-balls— learnt that at school — wimt to a ball- 
 negro wench principal musician !— N.B. People of America have 
 no fiddlers but females !— origia of the phrase, "fiddle of your 
 heart"— reasons why men fiddle better than women;— expe- 
 dient of the Amazons who were expert at the bow : — ^waiter at 
 the city-tavern— good story of his— nothing to the purpose- 
 never mind— fill up my book hke Carr— make it eell. Saw a 
 democrat get into the stage followed by his dog.§ N.B. This 
 town remarkable for dogs and democrats — superfine sentiment || 
 —good story from Joe Miller— ode to a piggin of butter— pen- 
 sive meditations on a mouse-hole— make a book as clear as a 
 whistle I 
 
 * vide Carr's learned derivation of gee and whoa. 
 t Moore. % Carr. § Moore. 1 Carr. 
 
SALMAOUNBI. ^ gj 
 
 NO. V.-SATUEDAY, MARCH 7, 1807. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 The following letter of my friend Mustapha appears to have 
 been written some time subsequent to the one already pub- 
 lished. Were I to judge from its contents, I should suppose it 
 was suggested by the splendid review of the twenty-fifth of 
 last November; when a pair of colours was presented at the 
 City-Hall, to the regiments of artillery; and when a huge dia- 
 ner was devoured, by our corporation, in the honourable re- 
 membrance of the evacuation of this city. I am happy to find 
 that the laudable spirit of military emulation which prevails 
 in our city has attracted the attention of a stranger of Musta- 
 pha's sagacity; by military emulation I mean that spirited 
 rivalry in the size of a hat, the length of a feather, and the 
 gingerbread finery of a sword belt. 
 
 LETTEE FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, 
 
 TO ABDALLAH EB'N AL EAHAB, STJRNAMED THE SNOEEE, MHJ- 
 TAET SENTINEL AT THE GATE OF HIS HIGHNESS' PALACE. 
 
 Thou hast heard, oh AbdaJlah, of the great magician, Muley 
 Fuz, who could change a blooming land, blessed with all the 
 elysian charms of hill and dale, of glade and grove, of fruit 
 and flower, into a desert, frightful, solitary, and forlorn; — 
 who with the wave of his wand could transform even the dis- 
 ciples of Mahomet into grinning apes and chattering monkeys. 
 Surely, thought I to myself this morning, the dreadful Mtiley 
 has been exercising his infernal enchantments on these un- 
 happy infidels. Listen, oh AbdaUah, and wonder ! Last night 
 I committed myself to tranquil slumber, encompassed with all 
 the monotonous tokens of peace, and this morning I awoke 
 enveloped in the noise, the bustle, the clangor, and the shouts 
 
m- SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 of war. Every thing was changed as if by magic. An im- 
 mense army had sprung up, like mushrooms, in a night; and 
 all the cobblers, tailors, and tinkers of the city had moimted 
 the nodding plume ; had become, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 helmetted heroes and war-worn veterans. 
 
 Alarmed at the beating of drums, the braying of trumpets, 
 and the shouting of the multitude, I dressed myself in haste, 
 saUied forth, and followed a prodigious crowd of people to a 
 I place called the battery. Tliis is so denominated, I am told, 
 from having once been defended with formidable wooden bul- 
 warks which in the course of a hard winter were thriftily 
 pulled to pieces by an economic corporation, to be distributed 
 for fire-wood among the poor ; this was done at the hint of a 
 cunning old engineer, who assured them it was the only way 
 in which their fortifications would ever be able to keep up a 
 warm iire. Economic, my friend, is the watch-word of this 
 nation; I have been studying for a month past to divine its 
 meaning, but truly am as much perplexed as ever. It is a 
 kind of national starvation ; an experiment how many com- 
 forts and necessaries the body pohtic can be deprived of before 
 it perishes. It has already arrived to a lamentable degree of 
 debiUty, and promises to share the fate of the Arabian philo- 
 sopher, who proved that he could live without food, but un- 
 fortunately died just as he had brought his experiment to 
 perfection. 
 
 On arriving at the battery, I found an immense army of six 
 HUNDRED MEN, drawn up in a true Mussulman crescent. At 
 first I supposed this was ia compliment to myself, but my 
 interpreter informed me that it was done merely for want of 
 room ; the corporation not being able to afford them sufScient 
 to display in a straight line. As I expected a display of some 
 grand evolutions, and military manoeuvres, I determined to 
 remain a tranquil spectator, in hopes that I might possibly 
 collect some hints which might be of service to his highness. 
 
 This great body of men I perceived was under the command 
 of a small bashaw, in yellow and gold, with white nodding 
 plumes, and most formidable whiskers ; which, contrary to the 
 Tripolitan fashion, were in the neighbourhood of his ears 
 instead of his nose. He had two attendants called aid-de- 
 camps, (or tails) being similar to a bashaw with two tails. 
 The bashaw, though commander-in-chief, seemed to have little 
 more to do than myself; he was a spectator within the lines 
 and I without : he was clear of the rabble and I was encom- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 53 
 
 passed by them; this was the only difference between us, 
 except that he had the best opportunity of showing his clothes. 
 I waited an hour or two with exemplary patience, expecting 
 to see some grand military evolutions or a sham battle ex- 
 hibited; but no such thing took place; the men stood stock 
 still, supporting their arms, groaning under the fatigues of 
 war, and now and then sending out a foraging party to levy 
 contributions of beer and a favourite beverage which they 
 denominate grog. As I perceived the crowd very active in 
 examining the line, from one extreme to the other, and as I 
 could see no other purpose for which these sunshine warriors 
 should be exposed so long to the merciless attacks of wind and 
 weather, I of course concluded that this must be the review. 
 
 In about two hours the army was put in motion, and 
 marched through some narrow streets, where the economic 
 corporation had carefully provided a soft carpet of mud, to a 
 magnificent castle of painted brick, decorated with grand 
 piUars of pine boards. By the ardor which brightened in each 
 countenance, I soon perceiyed that this castle was to undergo 
 a vigorous attack. As the ordnance of the castle was perfectly 
 silent, and as they had nothing but a straight street to advance 
 through, they made their approaches with great courage and 
 admirable regularity, until within about a hundred feet of the 
 castle a pump opposed a formidable obstacle in their way, and 
 put the whole army to a nonplus. The circumstance was sud' 
 den and imlooked for ; the commianding officer ran over all the 
 military tactics with which his head was crammed, but none 
 offered any expedient for the present awftil emergency. The 
 pump maintained its post, and so did the commander; there 
 was no knowing which was most at a stand. The command- 
 ing officer ordered his men to wheel and take it in flank;— the 
 army accordingly wheeled and came full butt against it in the 
 rear, exactly as they were before. — "Wheel to the left!" cried 
 the officer; they did so, and again as before the inveterate 
 pump intercepted their progress. "'Eight about face!" cried 
 the officer; the men obeyed, but bungled;— they /aced bach to 
 hack. Upon this the bashaw with two tails, with great cool- 
 ness, imdauntedly ordered his men to push right forward, 
 peU-meU, pump or no pump ; they gallantly obeyed ; after un- 
 heard-of acts of bravery the pump was carried, without the 
 loss of a man, and the army firmly entrenched itself under the 
 very walls of the castle. The bashaw had then a council of 
 war with his officers; the most vigorous measures were re- 
 
54 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 solved on. An advance guard of musicians were ordered to 
 attack the cas'ie without mercy. Then the whole band opened 
 a most tremendous battery of drums, fifes, tambourines, and 
 trumpets, and kept up a thundering assault, as if the castle, 
 like the walls of Jericho, spoken of in. the Jewish chronicles, 
 would tumble down at the blowing of rams' horns. After 
 some time a parley ensued. The grand bashaw of the city 
 appeared on the battlements of the castle, and as far as I could 
 understand from circumstances, dared the little bashaw of two 
 tails to single combat ; — this thou knowest was ia the style of 
 ancient chivalry; — the little bashaw dismounted with great 
 intrepidity, and ascended the battlem.ents of the castle, where 
 the great bashaw waited to receive him, attended by numerous 
 dignitaries and worthies of his court, one of whom bore the 
 splendid banners of the castle. The battle was carried on 
 entirely by words, according to the universal custom of this 
 country, of which I shall speak to thee more fully hereafter. 
 The grand bashaw made a furious attack in a speech of con- 
 siderable length; the Httle bashaw, by no means appalled, 
 retorted with great spirit. The grand bashaw attempted to 
 rip him up with an argument, or stun him with a sohd fact ; 
 but the httle bashaw parried them both with admirable adroit- 
 ness, and run him clean through and through with a syllogism. 
 The grand bashaw was overthrown, the banners of the castle 
 yielded up to the little bashaw, and the castle surrendered 
 after a vigorous defence of three hours, — during which the 
 besieger suffered great extremity from muddy streets and a 
 drizzHng atmosphere. 
 
 On returniag to dinner I soon discovered that as usual I had 
 been indulging in a great mistake. The matter was all clearly 
 explained to me by a fellow lodger, who on ordinary occasions 
 moves in the humble character of a tailor, but ia the present 
 instance figured in a high military station denominated cor- 
 poral. He informed me that what I had mistaken for a castle- 
 was the splendid palace of the municipahty, and that the sup- 
 posed attack was nothing more than the delivery of a flag 
 given by the authoritieSj to the army, for its magnanimous de- 
 fence of the town for upwards of twenty years past, that is, 
 ever since the last war. Oh ! my friend, surely every thing in 
 
 this country is on a great scale ! ^the conversation insensibly 
 
 turned upon the mUitary estabhshment of the nation ; and I do 
 assure thee that my friend, the tailor, though being, according 
 to a national proverb, but the ninth part of a man, yet acquit- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 55 
 
 ted himself on military concerns as ably as the grand bashaw 
 of the empire himself. He observed that their ruiers had de- 
 cided that wars were very useless and expensive, and ill befit- 
 ting an economic, philosophic nation; they had therefore made 
 up their minds never to have any wars, and consequently 
 there was no need of soldiers or military discipline. As, how- 
 ever, it was thought highly ornamental to a city to have a, 
 number of men drest in fine clothes and feathers, strutting 
 about the streets on a holiday — ^and as the women and children 
 were particularly fond of such raree shows, it was ordered that 
 the tailors of the different cities throughout the empire should, 
 forthwith, go to work, and cut out and manufacture soldiers, 
 as fast as their shears and needles would permit. 
 
 These soldiers have no pecuniary pay ; and their only recom- 
 pense for the immense services which they render their coun- 
 try, in their voluntary parades, is the plunder of .smiles, and 
 winks, and nods which thej' extort from the ladies. As they 
 have no opportunity, like the vagrant Arabs, of making in- 
 roads on their neighbors; and as it is necessary to keep up 
 their military spirit, the town is therefore now. and then, but 
 particularly on two days of the year, given up to their ravages. 
 The arrangements are contrived with admirable address, so 
 that every officer, from the bashaw down to the drum-major, 
 the chief of the eunuchs, or musicians, shall have his share of 
 that invaluable booty, the admiration of the fair. As to the 
 soldiers, poor animals, they, like the privates in all gi-eat ar- 
 mies, have to bear the brunt of danger and fatigue, while their 
 officers receive all the glory and reward. The narrative of a 
 parade day will exemplify this more clearly. 
 
 The chief bashaw, in the plenitude of his authority, orders a 
 grand review of the whole army at two o'clock. The bashaw 
 with two tails, that he may have an opportunity of vapouring 
 about as greatest man on the field, orders the army to assemble 
 at twelve. The kiaya, or colonel, as he is called, that is, com- 
 mander of one hundred and twenty men, orders his regiment 
 or tribe to collect one mile at least from the place of parade at 
 eleven. Each captain, or fag-rag as we term thom, commands 
 his squad to meet at ten at least a half mile from the regimen- 
 tal parade ; and to close all, the chief of the eimuchs orders his 
 infernal concert of fifes, trumpets, cymbals, and kettle-drums 
 to assemble at ten! from that moment the city receives no 
 quarter. All is noise, hooting, hubbub, and combustion. Every 
 window, door, crack, and loop-hole, from the garret to the 
 
56 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 cellar, is crowded with the fascinating fair of all ages and ©f 
 all complexions. The mistress smiles through the windows of 
 the drawing-room ; the chubhy chambermaid lolls out of the 
 attic casement, and a host of sooty wenches roU their white 
 eyes and grin and chatter from the cellar door. Every nymph 
 seems anxious to yield voluntarily that tribute which the 
 heroes of their country demand. First struts the chief eu- 
 nuch, or di-um-major, at the head of his sable band, magnifi- 
 cently arrayed in tarnished scarlet. Alexander himself could 
 not have spurned the earth more superbly. A host of ragged 
 boys shout in his train, and inflate the bosom of the warrior 
 with tenfold self-complacency. After he has rattled his kettle- 
 drums through the town, and swelled and swaggered like a 
 turkey-cock before aU the dingy Floras, and Dinahs, and Ju- 
 noes, and Didoes of his acquaintance, he repairs to his place of 
 destination loaded with a rich booty of smiles and approbation. 
 Next comes the Fag-rag, or captain, at the head of his mighty 
 band, consisting of one Keutenant, one ensign, or mute, four 
 sergeants, four corporals, one drummer, one fifer, and if he 
 has any privates, so much the better for himself. In march- 
 ing to the regimental parade he is sure to paddle through the 
 street or lane which is honoured with the residence of his mis- 
 tress or intended, whom he resolutely lays under a heavy con- 
 tribution. Truly it is delectable to behold these heroes, as they 
 march along, cast side glances at the upper windows ; to col- 
 lect the smiles, the nods, and the winks, which the enraptured 
 fair ones lavish profusely on the magnanimous defenders of 
 their country. 
 
 The Fag-rags having conducted their squads to their respec- 
 tive regiments, then comes the turn of the colonel, a bashaw 
 with no tails, for all eyes are now directed to him ; and the fag- 
 rags, and the eunuchs, and the kettle-drummers, having had 
 their hour of notoriety, are confound and lost in the mihtary 
 crowd. The colonel sets his whole regiment in motion; and, 
 mounted on a mettlesome charger, frisks and fidgets, and 
 capers, and phmges in front, to the great entertainment of the 
 multitude and the great hazard of himself and his neighbours. 
 Having displayed himself, his trappings, his horse, and his 
 horsemanship, he at length arrives at the place of general 
 rendezvous ; blessed with the universal admiration of his coun- 
 try-women. I should perhaps mention a squadron of hardy 
 veterans, most of whom have seen a deal of service during the 
 nineteen or twenty years of their existence, and who, most 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 57 
 
 gorgeously equipped in tight green jackets and breeches, trot 
 and amble, and gallop and scamper like little devils through 
 every street and nook and corner and poke-hole of the city, to 
 the great dread of all old people and sage matrons with young 
 children. This is truly sublime ! this is what I call making a 
 mountain out of a m.ole-hill. Oh, my friend, on what a great 
 scale is every thing in this country. It is in the style of the 
 wandering Arabs of the desert El-tih. Is a village to be at- 
 tacked, or a hamlet to be plundered, the whole desert, for 
 weeks beforehand, is in a buzz ; — such marching and counter- 
 marching, ere they can concentrate their ragged force 1 and the 
 consequence is, that before they can bring their troops into 
 action, the whole enterprise is blown. 
 
 The army being all happily collected on the battery, though, 
 perhaps, two hours after the time appointed, it is now the turn 
 of the bashaw, with two tails, to distinguish himself. Ambi- 
 tion, my friend, is implanted alike in every heart; it pervades 
 each bosom, from the bashaw to the drum-major. This is a 
 sage truism, and I trust, therefore, it will not be disputed. 
 The bashaw, fired with that thirst for glory, inseparable from 
 the noble mind, is anxious to reap a full share of the laurels of 
 the day and bear off his portion of female plunder. The drums 
 beat, the fifes whistle, the standards wave proudly in the air. 
 The signal is given ! thunder roars the cannon ! away goes the 
 bashaw, and away go the tails! The review finished, evolu- 
 tions and military manceuvi^es are generally dispensed with for 
 three excellent reasons; first, because the army knows very 
 Kttle about them ; second, because as the country has deter- 
 mined to remain always at peace, there is no necessity for 
 them to know any thing about them ; and third, as it is grow- 
 ing late, the bashaw must despatch, or it wiU be too dark 
 for him to get his quota of the plunder. He of course orders 
 the whole army to march: and now, my friend, now come 
 the tug of war, now is the city completely sacked. Open fly 
 the battery-gates, forth sallies the bashaw with his two tails, 
 sun-ounded by a shouting body-guard of boys and negroes! 
 then pour forth his legions, potent as the pismires of the 
 desert ! the customary salutations of the country commence — 
 those tokens of joy and admiration which so much annoyed 
 me on first landing: the air is darkened with old hats, shoes, 
 and dead cats ; they fly in showers like the arrows of the Par- 
 thians. The soldiers, no ways disheartened, like the intrepid 
 followers of Leonidas, march gallantly under their shade. On 
 
58 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 they push, splash dash, mud or no mud. Down one lane, up 
 another; — the martial music resounds through every street; 
 the fair ones throng to their windows, — the soldiers look 
 every way but straight forward. "Carry arms," cries the 
 bashaw— " tanta ra-ra," brays the trumpet — "rub-a-dub," 
 roars the di-um— "hurraw," shout the ragamuflELus. The 
 bashaw smiles with exultation— every fag-rag feels himself a 
 hero— " none but the brave deserve the fair!" head of the im- 
 moi-tal Amrou, on what a great scale is every thing in this 
 coimtry. 
 
 Ay, but you'll say, is not this unfair that the officers should 
 share all the sports while the privates undergo all the fatigue? 
 truly, my friend, I indulged the same idea, and pitied from 
 my heart the poor fellows who had to drabble through the 
 mud and the mire, toUing under ponderous cocked hats, which 
 seemed as unwieldy and cumbrous as the shell which the snail 
 lumbers along on his back. I soon found out, however, that 
 they have their quantum of notoi-iety. As soon as the army 
 is dismissed, the city swarms with litUle scouting parties, who 
 fire off their guns at every corner, to he great delight of aU the 
 women and children in their vicinity ; and wo unto any dog, 
 or pig, or hog, that falls in the way of these magnanimous war- 
 riors; they are shown no quarter. Every gentle swain repairs 
 to pass the evening at the feet of his dulciuea, to play " the 
 soldier tired of war's alarms, " and to captivate her with the 
 glare of his regimentals ; excepting some ambitious heroes who 
 strut to the theatre, ftame away in the front boxes, and hector 
 every old apple-woman in the lobbies. 
 
 Such, my friend, is the gigantic genius of this nation, and 
 its faculty of swelling up nothings into importance. Our 
 bashaw of Tripoli will review his troops, of some thousands, 
 by an early hour in the morning. Here a review of six hun- 
 dred men is made the mighty work of a day ! with us a bashaw 
 of two tails is never appointed to a command of less than ten 
 thousand men; but here we behold every grade, from the 
 bashaw down to the drum-major, in a force of less than one- 
 tenth of the number. By the beard of Mahomet, but every 
 thing here is indeed on a great scale 1 
 
SALMAGUNDI. B9 
 
 By ANTHONY EVERGEEEN, GENT. 
 
 I WAS not a little surprised the other morning at a request 
 from Will Wizard that I would accompany him. that evening 
 
 to Mrs. 's baU. The request was simple enough in itself, it 
 
 was only singular as coming from WiU ; — of all my acquaint- 
 ance Wizard is the least calculated and disposed for the society 
 of ladies — not that he dislikes their company;, on the contrary, 
 hke every man of pith and marrow, he is a professed admirer 
 of the sex ; and had he been born a poot, would undoubtedly 
 have bespattered and be-rhymed some hard-named goddess, 
 until she became as famous as Petrarch's Laura, or Waller's 
 Sacharissa ; but Will is such a confounded bungler at a bow, 
 has so many odd bachelor habits, and finds it so troublesome 
 to be gallant, that he generally prefers smoking his segar and 
 telling his story among cronies of his own gender : — and thun- 
 dering long stories they are, let me teU you ; — set Will once a 
 going about China or Grim Tartary, or the Hottentots, and 
 heaven help the poor victim who has to endure his prolixity ; 
 he might better be tied to the tail of a jack-o'-lantern. In one 
 word — WiU talks like a traveller. Being well acquainted with 
 his character, I was the more alarmed at his inchnation to 
 visit a party ; since he has often assured me, that he considered 
 it as equivalent to being stuck up for three hours in a steam- 
 engine. I even wondered how he had received an invitation ; — 
 this he soon accounted for. It seems WUl, on his last arrival 
 from Canton, had made a present of a case of tea to a lady for 
 whom he had once entertained a sneaking kindness when at 
 grammar school ; and she in return had invited him to come 
 and. drink some of it ; a chgap way enough of paying off little 
 obhgations. I readily acceded to Will's proposition, expecting 
 much entertainment from his eccentric remarks; and as he 
 has been absent some few years, I anticipated his surprise at 
 the splendour and elegance of a modern rout. 
 
 On calling for Will in the evening, I found hun fuU dressed, 
 waiting for me. I contemplated him with absolute dismay. 
 As he stUl retained a spark of regard for the lady who once 
 reigned in his affections, \e had been at unusual pains in 
 decorating his person, and broke upon my sight arrayed in the 
 the true style that prevailed among our beaiix some years 
 ago. His hair was turned up and tufted at the top, frizzled 
 
60 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 out at the ears, a profusion of powder pufEed over the whole, 
 and a long plaited club swung gracefully from shoulder to 
 shoulder, describing a pleasing semicircle of powder and poma- 
 tum. His claret-coloured coat was decorated with a profusion 
 of gilt buttons, and reached to his calves. His white casimere 
 small-clothes were so tight that he seemed to have grown up 
 in them ; and his ponderous legs, which are the thickest part 
 of his body, were beautifully clothed in sky-blue sUk stock- 
 ings, once considered so becoming. But above all, he prided 
 hunself upon his waistcoat of China silk, which might almost 
 have served a good housewife for a shortgown; and he 
 boasted that the roses and tulips upon it were the work of 
 Nang Fou, daughter of the great Chin-Chin-Fou, who had 
 fallen iu love with the graces of his person, and sent it to him 
 as a parting present ; he assured nae she was a remarkable 
 beauty, with sweet obliquity of eyes, and a foot no larger 
 than the thumb of an alderman;— he then dilated most 
 copiously on his sUver-sprigged dickey, which he assured me 
 was quite the rage among the dashing young mandarins of 
 Canton. 
 
 I hold it an ill-natured office to put any man out of conceit 
 with himselE ; so, though I would willingly have made a little 
 alteration in my friend Wizard's picturesque costume, yet I 
 politely complimented him on his rakish appearance. 
 
 On entering the room I kept a good look-out on Will, ex- 
 pecting to see him exhibit signs of surprise ; but he is one of 
 those knowing fellows who are never surprised at any thing, 
 or at least will never aclinowledge it. He took his stand in 
 the middle of the floor, playing with his great steel watch- 
 chain ; and looking around on the company, the furniture, and 
 
 the pictui-es, with the air of a man ' ' who had seen d d finer 
 
 things in his time ;" and to my utter confusion and dismay, I 
 saw him coolly puU out his villainous old japanned tobacco- 
 box, ornamented with a bottle, a pipe, and a scurvy motto, 
 and help hunself to a quid in face of aU the company. 
 
 I knew it was all in vain to find fault with a feUow of Will's 
 socratic turn, who is never to be put out of humour with him- 
 self; so,- after he had given his box its prescriptive rap and 
 returned it to his pocket, I drew him into a corner where he 
 might observe the company witho,ut being prominent objects 
 ourselves. 
 
 "Ajid pray who is that stylish figure," said Will, "who 
 blazes away in red, like a volcano, and who seems wrapped in 
 
SALMAQUNBI. 61 
 
 flames like a fiery dragon?"— That, cried I, is Miss Latjeelia. 
 Dashaway; — she is the highest flash of the ton— has much, 
 whim, and more eccentricity, and has reduced memy an un- 
 happy gentleman to stupidity hy her charms; you see she 
 holds out the red flag in token of "no quarter." "Then keep 
 me safe out of the sphere of her attractions," cried WiU. "I 
 would not e'en come in contact with her train, lest it should 
 
 scorch me like the tail of a comet. But who, I beg of you, 
 
 is that amiable youth who is handing along a young lady, and 
 at the same contemplating his sweet person in a mirror, as he 
 passes?" His name, said I, is Billy Dimple;— he is a univer- 
 sal smiler, and would travel from Dan to Beersheba and smile 
 on every liody as he passed. Dimple is a slave to the ladies — 
 a hero at tea-parties, and is famous at the pirouet and the 
 pigeon- wing ; a fiddle-stick is his idol, and a dance his olysiuna. 
 " A very pretty young gentleman, truly," cried Wizard; "he 
 reminds me of a cotemporary beau at Hayti. Tou must know 
 that the magnanimous Dessalines gave a great ball to his court 
 one fine sultry summer's evening ; Dessy and me were great 
 cronies; — ^hand and glove:— one of the most condescending 
 great men I ever know. Such a display of black and yeUow 
 beauties! such a show of Madras handkerchiefs, red beads,, 
 cock's-tails and peacock's feathers!— it was, as here, who 
 should wear the highest top-knot, drag the longest tails, or 
 exhibit the greatest variety of combs, colours and gew-gaws. 
 In the middle of the rout, when aU was buzz, slip-shod, clack, 
 and perfume, who should enter but Tucky Squash! The 
 yellow beauties blushed blue, and the black ones blushed as 
 red as they could, with pleasure ; and there was a universal 
 agitation of fans ; every eye brightened and whitened to see 
 Tucky; for he was the pride of the court, the pink of courtesy, 
 the mirror of fashion, the adoration of all the sable fair ones 
 of Hayti. Such breadth of nose, such exuberance of lip ! his 
 shins had the true cucumber curve ; his face in dancing shone 
 like a kettle ; and, provided you kept to windward of him in 
 summer, I do not known a sweeter youth in aU Hayti than 
 Tucky Squash. When he laughed, there appeared from ear 
 to ear a chevaux-de-frize of teeth, that rivalled the shark's in 
 whiteness; he could whistle like a north-wester; play on a 
 three-stringed fiddle hke Apollo ; and as to dancing, no Long- 
 Island negro could shuffle you " double-trouble," or "hoe com 
 and dig potatoes" more scientifically :— in short, he was a 
 second Lothario. And the dusky nymphs of Hayti, one and 
 
62 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 all, declared him a perpetual Adonis. Tucky walked about, 
 ■whistling to himself, without regarding any body; and his 
 nonchalance was irresistible." 
 
 I found Will had got neck and heels into one of his travel- 
 lers' stories ; and there is no knowing how far he would have 
 run his parallel between Billy Dimple and Tucky Squash, had 
 not the music struck up, from an adjoining apartment, and 
 summoned the company to the dance. The sound seemed to 
 have an irugpiring effect on honest Will, and he procured the 
 hand of an old acquaintance for a country dance. It hap- 
 pened to be the fashionable one of "the Devil among the 
 tailors," which is so vociferously demanded at every ball and 
 assembly : and many a torn gown, and many an unfortunate 
 toe did rue the dancing of that night; for Will, thundering 
 down the dance like a coach and six, sometimes right, some- 
 wrong; now running over half a score of little Frenchmen, 
 and now making sad inroads into ladies' cobweb muslins and 
 spangled tails. As every part of WUl's body partook of the 
 exertion, he shook from his capacious head such volumes of 
 ipowder, that like pious Eneas on the first interview with 
 Queen Dido, he might be said to have been enveloped in a 
 cloud. Nor was Will's partner an insignificant figure in the 
 scene; she was a young lady of most voluminous proportions, 
 that quivered at every skip; and being braced up in the 
 fashionable style with whalebone, stay-tape, and buckram, 
 looked like an applo-pudding tied in the middle ; or, taking her 
 flaming dress into consideration, like a bed and bolsters rolled 
 up in a suit of red curtains. The dance finished — I would 
 gladly have taken Will off, but no;— he was now in one of Ms 
 happy moods, and there was no doing any thing with him. 
 He insisted on my introducing him to Miss Sophy Sparkle, 
 a young lady unrivalled for playful wit and innocent vivacity, 
 and who, like a brilliant, adds lustre to the front of fashion. 
 I accordingly presented him to her, and began a conversation 
 in which, I thought, he might take a share; but no such 
 thing. WiR took his stand before her, straddling like a 
 Colossus, with his hands in his pockets, and an air of the most 
 profound attention; nor did he pretend to open his hps for 
 some time, untU, upon some hvely sally of hers, he electrified 
 the whole company with a most intolerable burst of laughter. 
 What was to be done with such an incorrigible fellow?— to 
 add to my distress, the first word he spoke was to tell Miss 
 Sparkle that something she said reminded him of a circum- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 63 
 
 stance that happeiiod to him in China ; — and at it he went, in 
 the true traveller style— described the Chinese mode of eating 
 rice with chop-sticks ;- -entered into a long eulogium on the 
 succulent qualities of boiled bird's nests; and I made my 
 escape at the very moment when he was on the point of 
 squatting down on the floor, to show how the little Chinesa 
 Joshes sit cross-legged. 
 
 TO THE LADIES. 
 
 FEOM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 
 
 Though jogging down the hUl of life, 
 Without the comfort of a wife ; • 
 
 And though I ne'er a helpmate chose. 
 To stock my house and mend my hose; 
 With care.my person to adorn. 
 And spruce me up on Sunday mom; — 
 Still do I love the gentle sex, 
 And still with cares my brain perpley 
 To keep the fair ones of the age 
 Unsullied as the spotless page^ 
 All pure, aU simple, all refined, 
 The sweetest solace of mankind. 
 
 I hate the loose, insidious jest 
 To beauty's modest ear addrest, 
 And hold that frowns should never fail 
 To check each smooth, but fulsome tale ; 
 But he whose impious pen should dare 
 Invade the morals of the fair; 
 To taint that purity divine 
 Which should each female heart enshrine ; 
 Though soft his vicious strains should swell, 
 As those which erst from Gabriel fell, 
 Should yet be held aloft to shame. 
 And foul dishonour shade his name. 
 Judge, then, my friends, of my surprise, 
 The ire that kindled in my eyes, 
 When I relate, that t'other day 
 I went a moming-caU to pay, 
 
64 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 On two young nieces : just come down 
 
 To take the polish of the town. 
 
 By which I mean no more or less 
 
 Than a la Francaise to undress ; 
 
 To whirl the modest waltz' rounds, 
 
 Taught by Duport for snug ten pounds. 
 
 To thump and thunder through a song, 
 
 Play /orfes soft and dolce's strong; 
 
 Exhibit loud piano feats. 
 
 Caught from that crotchet-hero, Meetz : 
 
 To drive the rose-bloom from the face, 
 
 And fix the Uly in its place ; 
 
 To doff the white, and in its stead 
 
 To bounce about in brazen red. 
 
 WhUe in the parlour I delay'd, 
 TiU they their persons had array'd, 
 A dapper volume caught my eye, 
 That on the window chanced to lie : 
 A book's a friend — I always choose 
 To turn its pages and peruse: — 
 It proved those poems kno^vn to fame 
 For praising every cyprian dame ;-^ 
 The bantlings of a dapper youth, 
 Eenown'd for gratitude and truth : 
 A little pest, hight Tommy Mooeb, 
 Who hopp'd and skipp'd our country o'er; 
 Who sipp'd our tea and lived on sops, 
 Eevell'd on syllabubs and slops. 
 And when his brain, of cobweb fine. 
 Was fuddled with five droits of wine, 
 Would all his puny loves rehearse, 
 And many a maid debauch— in verse. 
 Surprised to meet in open view, 
 A book of such lascivious hue, 
 I chid my nieces— but they say, 
 'Tis all the passion of the day ; — 
 That many a fashionable belle 
 Will with enraptured accents dwell 
 On the sweet nwrceau she has found 
 In this delicious, curst, compound ! 
 
 Soft do the tinkling numbers roll, 
 And lure to vice the unthinking, soul ; 
 
8ALMA O UNDI. 
 
 They tempt by softest sounds away, 
 They lead entranced the heai-t astray ; 
 And Satan's doctrine sweetly sing, 
 As with a seraph's heavenly string. 
 Such sounds, so good, old Homer sung. 
 Once warbled from the Syren's tongue ; — 
 Sweet melting tones were heard to pour 
 Along Ausonia's sun-gilt shore ; 
 Seductive strains in aether float, 
 And every wUd deceitful note 
 That could the yielding heart assail, 
 Were waited on the breathing gale ; — 
 And every gentle accent bland 
 To tempt Ulysses to their strand. 
 And can it be this book so base, 
 Is laid on every window-case? 
 Oh ! fair ones, if you will profane 
 Those breasts where heaven itself should reign; 
 And throw those pure recesses wide, 
 Where peace and virtue should reside 
 To let the holy pile admit 
 A guest unhallowed and unfit ; 
 Pray, Uke the frail ones of the night, 
 Who hide their wanderings from the light,_ 
 So let your errors secret be. 
 And hide, at least, your fault from me : 
 Seek some by corner to explore 
 The smooth, polluted pages o'er. 
 There drink the insidious poison in. 
 There slyly nurse your souls for sin: 
 And while that purity you bUght 
 Which stamps you messengers of Mght, 
 And sap those mounds the gods bestow, 
 To keep you spotless here below; 
 Still in compassion to our race. 
 Who joy, not only in the face, 
 But in that more exalted part. 
 The sacred temple of the heart ; 
 Oh ! hide for ever from our view, 
 The fatal mischief you pursue : — 
 Let MEN your praises still exalt. 
 And none but angels mourn your fault. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 NO. VL-FRIDAY MARCH 20, 180T. 
 
 FEOM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 The Cockloft family, of which I have made such frequent 
 mention, is of great antiquity, if there be any truth in the 
 genealogical tree which hangs up in my cousin's library. They 
 trace their descent from a celebrated Roman knight, cousin to 
 the progenitor of his majesty of Britain, who left his native 
 country on occasion of some disgust ; and coming into Wales 
 became a great favourite of prince Madoc, and accompanied 
 that famous argonaut in the voyage which ended in the dis- 
 covery of this continent. Though a member of the family, I 
 have sometimes ventured to doubt the authenticity of this por- 
 tion of their annals, to the great vexation of cousin Christopher: 
 who is looked up to as the head of our house ; and who, though 
 as orthodox as a bishop, would sooner give up the whole deca- 
 logue than lop ofE a single limb of the family tree. From time 
 immemorial, it has been the rule for the Cocklofts to marry 
 one of their own name ; and as they always bred like rabbits, 
 the family has increased and multipUed like that of Adam and 
 Eve. In truth, their number is almost incredible ; and you can 
 hardly go into any part of the country without starting 
 a warren of genuine Cocklofts. Every person of the least 
 observation or experience must have observed that where 
 this practice of marrying cousins and second cousins pre- 
 vails in a fjmiily, every member in the course of a few gen- 
 erations becomes queer, humourous, and origiaa] ; as much dis- 
 tinguished from the common race of mongrels as if he was 
 of a different species. This has happened in our family, 
 and particularly in that branch of it of which Mr. Christopher 
 Cockloft, or, to do him justice, Mr. Christopher Cockloft, Esq., 
 is the head. Christopher is, in fact, the only married man of 
 the name who resides in town ; his family is small, having lost 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 67' 
 
 most of his children when young, by the excessive care he took 
 to bring them up like vegetables. This was one of his first 
 whim-whams, and a confounded one it was, as his children 
 might have told, had they not fallen victims to this expei iment 
 before they could talk. He had got from some quack philoso- 
 pher or other a notion that there was a complete analogy be- 
 tween children and plants, and that they ought to be both 
 reared alike. Accordingly, he sprinkled them every morning 
 with water, laid them out in the sun, as he did his geraniums ; 
 and if the season was remarkably dry, repeated this wise ex- 
 periment three or four times of a morning. The consequence 
 was, the poor httle souls died one after the other, except Jer- 
 emy and his two sisters, who, to be sure, are a trio of as odd, 
 runty, mummy-looking originals as ever Hogarth fancied in 
 his most happy moments. Mrs. Cockloft, the larger if not the 
 better half of my cousin, often remonstrated against this vege- 
 table theory; and even brought the parson of the parish in 
 which my cousin's country house is situated to her aid, but in 
 vain : Christopher persisted, and attributed the failure of his 
 plan to its not having been exactly conformed to. As I have 
 mentioned Mrs. Cockloft, I may as well say a little more about 
 her while I am in the humour. She is a lady of wonderful no- 
 tability, a warm admirer of shining mahogany, clean hearths, 
 and her husband ; who she considers the wisest man ia the 
 world, bating Will Wizard and the parson of our parish ; the 
 last of whom is her oracle on all occasions. She goes constant- 
 ly to chTirch every Sunday and Saints-day ; and insists upon it 
 that no man is entitled to ascend a pulpit unless he has been 
 ordained by a bishop ; nay, so far does she carry her orthodoxy, 
 that all the argiunent in the world will never persuade her that 
 a Presbyterian or Baptist, or even a Calvinist, has any possible 
 chance of going to heaven. Above every thing else, however, 
 she abhors paganism. Can scarcely refrain from laying vio- 
 lent hands on a pantheon when she meets with it ; and was 
 very nigh going into hysterics when my cousin insisted one of 
 his boys should be christened after our laureate : because the 
 parson of the parish had told her that Pindar was the name 
 of a pagan writer, famous for his love of boxing matches, 
 wrestling, and horse-racing. To smn up all her qualifications 
 in the shortest possible way, Mrs. Cockloft is, in the true sense 
 of the phrase, a good sort of woman; and I often congratulate 
 my cousin on possessing her. The rest of the family consists 
 of Jeremy Cockloft the younger, who has already been men- 
 
68 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 tioned, and the two Miss Cocklofts, or rather the young ladies, 
 as they have been called by the servants, time out of mind ; not 
 that they are really young, the younger being somewhat on the 
 shady side of thirty, but it has ever been the custom to call 
 every member of the family young under fifty. In the south- 
 east comer of the house, I hold quiet possession of an old- 
 fashioned apartment, where myself and my elbow-chair are 
 suffered to amuse ourselves undisturbed, save at meal times. 
 This apartment old Cockloft has facetiously denominated 
 cousin Launce's paradise ; and the good old gentleman has two 
 or three favourite jokes about it, which are served up as reg- 
 ularly as the standing family dish of beef-steaks and onions, 
 which every day maintains its station at the foot of the table, 
 in defiance of mutton, poultry, or even venison itself. 
 
 Though the family is apparently small, yet, like most old es- 
 tablishments of the kind, it does not want for honorary mem- 
 bers. It is the city rendezvous of the Cocklofts ; and we are 
 continually enlivened by the company of half a score of uncles, 
 aunts, and cousins, in the fortieth remove, from aU parts of 
 the country, who profess a wonderful regard for cousin Chris- 
 topher, and overwhelm every member of his household, down 
 to the cook in the kitchen, with their attentions. We have for 
 three weeks past been greeted with the company of two worthy 
 old spinsters, who came down from the country to settle a law- 
 suit. They have done little else but retail stories of their vil- 
 lage neighbours, knit stockings, and take snxifE all the time they 
 have been here ; the whole family are bewildered with church- 
 yard tales of sheeted ghosts, white horses without heads and 
 with large goggle eyes in their buttocks ; and not one of the 
 old servants dare budge an inch after dark without a numerous 
 company at his heels. My cousin's visitors, however, always 
 return his hospitality with due gratitude, and now and then re- 
 mind him of their fraternal regard by a present of a pot of 
 apple-sweetmeats or a barrel of sour cider at Christmas. Jere- 
 my displays himself to great advantage among his country re- 
 lations, who all think him a prodigy, and often stand astound- 
 ed, in "gaping wonderment," at his natural philosophy. He 
 lately frightened a simple old tmcle almost out of his wits, 
 by giving it as his opinion that the earth would one day be 
 scorched to ashes by the eccentric gambols of the famous 
 comet, so much talked of; and positively asserted that this 
 world revolved round the sun, and that the moon was certain- 
 ly inhabited. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 69 
 
 The family mansion bears equal marks of antiquity witli its 
 inhabitants. As the Cocklofts are remarkable for their attach- 
 ment to every thing that has remained long in the family, they 
 are bigoted towards theii- old edifice, and I dare say would 
 sooner have it crumble about their ears than abandon it. The 
 consequence is, it has been so patched up and repaired, that it 
 has become as full of whims and oddities as its tenants; re- 
 quires to be nursed and hiunoured like a gouty old codger of 
 an alderman, and reminds one of the famous ship in which a 
 certain adnairal circumnavigated the globe, which was so 
 patched and timbered, in order to preserve so great a curi- 
 osity, that at length not a particle of the original remained. 
 Whenever the wmd blows, the old mansion makes a most 
 perilous groaning; and every storm is sure to make a day's 
 work for the carpenter, who attends upon it as regularly as the 
 family physician. This predilection for every thing that has 
 been long in the family shows itself in every particular. The 
 domestics are all grown gray in the service of our house. We 
 have a Httle, old, crusty, grey-headed negro, who has lived 
 through two or three generations of the Cocklofts; and, of 
 course, has become a personage of no little importance in the 
 household. He calls all the family by their Christian names; 
 teUs long stories about how he dandled them on his knee when 
 they were children ; and is a complete Cockloft chronicle for 
 the last seventy years. The family carriage was made in the 
 last French war, and the old horses were most indubitably 
 foaled in Noah's ark; resembling marvellously, in gravity of 
 demeanour, those sober animals which may be seen any day 
 of the year in the streets of Philadelphia, walking their snail's 
 pace, a dozen in a row, and harmoniously jingling their bells. 
 Whim-whams are the inheritance of the Cocklofts, and every 
 member of the household is a humourist sui generis, from the 
 master down to the footman. The very cats and dogs are -hu- 
 mourists ; and we have a little, runty scoundrel of a cur, who, 
 whenever the church-bells ring, will run to the street-door, 
 turn up his nose in the wind, and howl most piteously. Jere- 
 my insists that this is owing to a peculiar delicacy in the or- 
 ganization of his ears, and supports his position by many 
 learned arguments which nobody can understand ; but I am of 
 opinion that it is a mere Cocldoft whim-wham, which the little 
 cur indulges, being descended from a race of dogs which has 
 flourished in the family ever since the time of my grandfather. 
 A propensity to save evei-y thing that bears the stamp of fam- 
 
70 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 ily a,ntiquity, has accumulated an abundance of trumpery and 
 rubbish with which the house is encumbered from the cellar to 
 the garret ; and every room and closet, and corner is crammed 
 with three-legged chairs, clocks without hands, swords without 
 scabbards, cocked hats, broken candlesticks, and looking- 
 glasses with frames carved into fantastic shapes of feathered 
 sheep, woolly birds, and other animals that have no name save 
 in books of heraldry. The ponderous mahogany chairs in the 
 parlour are of such unwieldy proportions that it is quite a seri- 
 ous undertaking to gallant one of them across the room ; and 
 sometimes make a most equivocal noise when you set down in 
 a hurry; the mantel-piece is decorated with little lacquered 
 earthern shepherdesses: some of which are without toes, and 
 others without noses ; and the fire-place is garnished out with 
 Dutch tilcs^ exhibiting a great variety of scripture pieces, which 
 my good old soul of a cousin takes infinite dehght in explain- 
 ing. — Poor Jeremy hates them as he does poison; for while a 
 yonker, he was obliged by his mother to learn the history of a 
 tile every Sunday morning before she would permit him to 
 join his playmates; this was a terrible affair for Jeremy, who, 
 by the time he had learned the last had forgotten the first, and 
 was obliged to begin again. He assured me the other day, with 
 a round college oath, that if the old house stood out till he in- 
 herited it, he would have these tiles taken out and ground into 
 powder, for the perfect hatred he bore them. 
 
 My cousin Christopher enjoys unlimited authority in the 
 mansion oi his forefathers ; he is truly what may be termed 
 a hearty old blade, has a florid, sunshine countenance ; and if 
 you will only praise his wine, and laugh at his long stories, 
 himself and his house are heartily at your service. — The first 
 condition is indeed easily complied with, for, to tell the truth, 
 his wine is excellent ; but his stories, being not of the best, and 
 often repeated, are apt to create a disposition to yawn ; being, 
 in addition to their other qualities, most unreasonably long. 
 His prolixity is the more afflicting to me, since I have all his 
 stories by heart; and when he enters upon one, it renainds me 
 of Newark causeway, where the traveller sees the end at the 
 distance of several miles. To the great misfortune of all his 
 acquaintance, cousin Cockloft is blest with a most provoking- 
 ly retentive memory; and can give day and date, and name 
 and age and circumstance, with the most unfeeling preci- 
 sion. These, however, are but trivial foibles, forgotten, or 
 remembered, only with a kind of tender, respectful pity, by 
 
SALMA6UNDI. 71 
 
 those wlio know with what a rich redtindant harvest of kind- 
 ness and generosity his heart is stored. It would deUght you 
 to see with what social gladness he welcomes a visitor into liis 
 house ; and the poorest man that enters his door never leaves 
 it without a cordial invitation to sit down and drink a glass of 
 wine. By the honest farmers roimd his country-seat, he is 
 looked up to with love and reverence ; they never pass him by 
 without his inquiring after the welfare of their families, and 
 receiving a cordial shake of his Mberal hand. There are but 
 two classes of people who are thrown out of the reach of his 
 hospitality, and these are Frenchmen and democrats. The old 
 gentleman considers it treason against the majesty of good 
 breeding to speak to any visitor with his hat on ; but, the mo- 
 ment a democrat enters his door, he forthwith bids his man 
 Pompey bring his hat, puts it on his head, and salutes him 
 with an appalling "well, sir, what do you want with me?" 
 
 He has a profound contempt for Frenchmen, and firmly be- 
 lieves, that they eat nothing but frogs and soup-maigre in 
 their own country. This unluckly prejudice is partly owing 
 to my great aunt, Pamela, having been many years ago, run 
 away with by a French Count, who turned out to be the son 
 of a generation of barbers; — and partly to a Httle vivid spark 
 of toryism, which bums in a secret corner of his heart. He 
 was a loyal subject of the crown, has hardly yet recovered the 
 shock of independence ; and, though he does not care to own 
 it, always does honour to his majesty's birth-day, by inviting 
 a few cavaliers, Hke himself, to dinner; and gracing his table 
 with more than ordinary festivity. If by chance the revolu- 
 tion is mentioned before him, my cousin shakes his head ; and 
 you may see, if you take good note, a lurking smile of con- 
 tempt in the comer of his eye, which marks a decided disap- 
 probation of the soimd. He once, in the fulness of his heart, 
 observed to me that green peas were a month later than they 
 were under the old government. But the most eccentric mani- 
 festation of loyalty he ever gave, was making a voyage to Hali- 
 fax for no other leason under heaven but to hear his Majesty 
 prayed for in church, as he used to be here formerly. TMs he 
 never could, be brought fairly to acknowledge ; but if: is a cer- 
 tain fact, I assure you. It is not a little singular tlwt a per- 
 son, so much given to long story-telling as my cousin, should 
 take a liking to another of the same character ; but so it is 
 with the old gentleman: — his prime favourite and companion 
 isWiU Wizard., who is almost a member of the family; and 
 
72 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 will sit before the fire, with his feet on the massy andirons, 
 and smoke his segar, and screw his phiz, and spin away tre- 
 mendous long stories of his travels, for a whole evening, to the 
 great delight of the old gentleman and lady ; and especially of 
 the young ladies, who, like Desdemona, do " seriously incline, " 
 and listen to him with innumerable "O dears," "is it possi- 
 bles," "goody graciouses," and look upon him as a second Sin- 
 bad the sailor. 
 
 The Miss Cocklofts, whose pardon I crave for not having 
 particularly introduced them before, are a pair of delectable 
 damsels ; who, having purloined and locked up the family -Bible, 
 pass for just what age they please to plead guilty to. Bar- 
 bara, the eldest, has long since resigned the character of a 
 beUe, and adopted that staid, sober, demure, snuff-taking air be- 
 coming her years and discretion. She is a good-natured soul, 
 whom I never saw in a passion but once ; and that was occa- 
 sioned by seeing an old favorite beau of hers, kiss the hand 
 of a pretty blooming girl; and, in ti-uth, she only got angry 
 because, as she very properly said, it was spoiling the child. 
 Her sister Margery, or Maggie, as she is familiarly termed, 
 seemed disposed to maintain her post as a belle, until a few 
 months since; when accidently hearing a gentleman observe 
 that she broke very fast, she suddenly left off going to the as- 
 sembly, took a cat into high favour, and began to rail at the 
 forward pertness of young misses. From that moment I set 
 her down for an old maid; and so she is, "by the hand of my 
 body." The young ladies are still visited by some half dozen 
 of veteran beaux, who grew and flourished in the Tiaut ton, 
 when the Miss Cocklofts were quite children; but have been 
 brushed rather rudely by the hand of time, who, to say the 
 truth, can do almost any thing but make people young. They 
 are, notwithstanding, still warm candidates for female favour; 
 look venerably tender, and repeat over and over the same 
 honeyed speeches and sugared sentiments to the little belles 
 that they poured so profusely into the ears of their mothers. 
 I beg leave here to give notice, that by this sketch, I mean no 
 reflection on old bachelors; on the contrary, I hold that 
 next to a fine lady, the we plus ultra, an old bachelor to be the 
 most charming being upon earth; in as much as by living in 
 "single blessedness," he of course does just as he pleases; and 
 if he has any genius, must acquire a plentiful stock of whims, 
 and oddities, and whalebone habits ; without which I esteem a 
 man to be mere beef without mustard ; good for nothing at aU, 
 
SAL2IA0 UNDT. ' 73 
 
 but to run on errands for ladies, take boxes at the theatre, and 
 act the part Ol a screen at tea-parties, or a waUdng-stick in 
 the streets. I merely speak of these old boys who infest pub- 
 lic walks, pounce upon ladies from, every corner of the street, 
 and worry and frisk and amble, and caper before, behind, and 
 round about the fashionable belles, Uke old ponies in a pasture, 
 striving to supply the absence of youthful whim and hilarity, 
 by grimaces and grins, and artificial vivacity. I have some- 
 times seen one of these "reverend youths" endeavoring to ele- 
 vate his wintry passions into something hke love, by basking 
 in the sunshine of beauty; and it did remind me of an old 
 moth attempting to fly through a pane of glass towards a 
 light, without ever approaching near enough to warm itself, 
 or scorch its wings. 
 
 Never, I firmly believe, did there exist a family that went 
 more by tangents than the Cocklofts. Every thing is gov- 
 erned by whim; and if one m.ember starts a new freak, away 
 all the rest follow on like wUd geese in a string. As the 
 family, the servants, the horses, cats, and dogs, have all grown 
 old together, they have accommodated themselves to each 
 other's habits completely ; and though every body of them is 
 full of odd points, angles, rhomboids, and ins and outs, yet, 
 some how or other, they harmonize together like so many 
 straight lines; and it is truly a grateful and refreshing sight 
 to see them agree so well. Should one, however, get out of 
 tune, it is like a cracked fiddle : the whole concert is ajar ; you 
 perceive a cloud over every brow in the house, and even the 
 old chairs seem to creak affetuosso. If my cousin, as he is 
 rather apt to do, betray any symptoms of vexation or uneasi- 
 ness, no matter about what, he is worried to death with in- 
 quiries, which answer no other end but to demonstrate the 
 good-will of the inquirer, and put him in a passion: for every 
 body knows how provoking it is to be cut short in a fit of the 
 blues, by an impertinent question about "what is the matter?" 
 when a man can't tell himself. I remember a few months ago 
 the old gentleman came home in quite a squall ; kicked poor 
 Cassar, the mastiff, out of his way, as he came through the 
 hall; threw his hat on the table with most violent emphasis, 
 and pulling out his box, took three huge pinches of snuff, and 
 threw a fourth into the cat's eyes as he sat purring his aston- 
 ishment by the fire-eide. This was enough to set the body 
 politic going; Mrs. Cockloft began "my dearing" it as faist 
 as tongue could move; the young ladies took each a stand 
 
74 SALMAOUNDI. 
 
 at an elbow of his chair; — Jeremy marshalled in rear; — the 
 servants came tumbling in ; the mastiff put up an inquiring 
 nose ; — and even grimalkin, after he had cleaned his whiskers 
 and finished sneezing, discovered indubitable signs of sym- 
 pathy. After the most affectionate inquiries on aU sides, it 
 turned out that my cousin, in crossing the street, had got his 
 sUk stockings bespattered with mud by a coach, which it seems 
 belonged to a dashing gentleman who had formerly supphed 
 the family with hot rolls and muffins ! Mrs. Cockloft there- 
 upon turned up her eyes, and the young ladies their noses; 
 and it would have edified a whole congregation to hear the 
 conversation which took place concerning the insolence of up- 
 starts, and the vulgarity of would-be gentlem.en and ladies, 
 who strive to emerge from low life by dashing about in car- 
 riages to pay a visit two doors of; giving parties to people who 
 laugh at them, and cutting aU their old friends. 
 
 THEATRICS. 
 
 BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 I WENT a few evenings since to the theatre accompanied by 
 my friend Snivers, the cockney, who is a man deeply read in 
 the history of Cinderella, Valentine and Orson, Blue Beard, 
 and all those recondite works so necessary to enable a man to 
 tmderstand the modem drama. Snivers is one of those in- 
 tolerable fellows who wUl never be pleased with any thing 
 until he has turned and twisted it divers ways, to see if it cor- 
 responds with his notions of congruity ; and as he is none of 
 the quickest in his ratiocinations, he wiU sometimes come out 
 with his approbation, when every body else has forgotten the 
 cause which excited it. Snivers is, moreover, a great critic, 
 for he finds fault with every thing ; this being what I under- 
 stand by modern criticism. He, however, is pleased to ac- 
 knowledge that our theatre is not so despicable, all things con- 
 sidered ; and really thinks Cooper one of our best actors. The 
 play was Othello, and to speak my mind freely, I think I 
 have seen it performed much worse m my time. The actors, I 
 firmly believe, did their best ; and whenever this is the case 
 no man has a right to find fault with them, in my opinion. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 75 
 
 little ExJTHEEFOED, the Eoscius of the Philadelphia theatre, 
 looked as big as possible ; and what he wanted in size he made 
 up in frowning. I like frowning in tragedy ; and if a man but 
 keeps his forehead in proper wrinkle, talks big, and takes long- 
 strides on the stage, I always set him down as a great trage- 
 dian; and so does my friend Snivers. 
 
 Before the first act was over, Snivers began to flourish his 
 critical wooden sword hke a harlequin. He first found fault 
 with Cooper for not having made himself as black as a negro ; 
 "for," said he, "that Othello was an arrant black, appears 
 from several expressions of the play ; as, for instance, ' thick 
 hps,' ' sooty bosom,' and a variety of others. I am inclined to 
 think," continued he, "that Othello was an Egyptian by birth, 
 from the circumstance of the handkerchief given to his mother 
 by a native of that country ; and, if ao, he certainly was as 
 black as my hat : for Herodotus has told us, that the Egyptians 
 had flat noses and frizzled haii"; a clear proof that they were 
 all negroes." He did not confine his strictures to this single 
 error of the actor, but went on to run him down in toto. In 
 this he was seconded by a red hot Philadelphian, who proved, 
 by a string of most eloquent logical puns, that Fennel was un- 
 questionably in every respect a better actor than Cooper. I 
 knew it was vain to contend with them, since I recollected a 
 most obstinate trial of skill these two great Boscii had last 
 spring in Philadelphia. Cooper brandished his blood-stained 
 dagger at the theatre— Fennel flourished his snuff-box and 
 shook his wig at the Lyceum, and the unfortunate Philadel- 
 Tjhians were a long time at a loss to decide which deserved the 
 palm. The literati were inclined to give it ,to Cooper, because 
 his name was the most fruitful in puns, but then, on the other 
 side, it was contended that Fennel was the best Greek scholar. 
 Scarcely was the town of Strasburgh in a greater hub-bub 
 about the courteous stranger's nose ; and it was well that the 
 doctors of the university did not get into the dispute, else it 
 might have become a battle of folios. At length, after much 
 excellent argument had been expended on both sides, recourse 
 was had to Cocker's arithmetic and a carpenter's rule; the 
 rival candidates were both measured by one of their most 
 steady-handed critics, and by the most exact measurement it 
 was proved that Mr. Fennel was the greater actor by three 
 Inches and a quarter. Since this demonstration of his inferior- 
 ity. Cooper has never been able to hold up his head in Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
76 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 In order to change a conversation in which my favourite i 
 sxifEered so much, I made some inquiries of the Philadelphian, 
 concerning the two heroes of his theatre, Wood and Cain; but 
 I had scarcely mentioned their names, when, whack ! he threw 
 a whole handful of puns in my face; 'twas like a bowl of cold 
 Watei". I turned on my heel, had recourse to my tobacco-box, 
 and said no more about Wood and Cain; nor will I ever more, 
 if I can help it, mention their names in the presence of a Phila- 
 delphian. Would that they could leave ofE punning ! for I love 
 every soid of them, with a cordial affection, warm as their 
 own generous hearts, and boundless as their hospitality. 
 
 During the performance, I kept an eye on the countenance 
 of my friend, the cockney ; because having come aU the way 
 from England, and having seen Kemble once, on a visit which 
 he made from the button manufactory to Lunnun, I thought 
 his phiz might serve as a kind of thermometer to direct my 
 manifestations of applause or disapprobation. I might as well 
 have looked at the back-side of his head ; for I could not, with 
 aU my peering, perceive by his featm-es that he was pleased 
 with any thing— except himself. His hat was twitched a httle 
 on one side, as much as to say, " demme, I'm your sorts !" He 
 was sucking the end of a little stick ; he was a ' ' gemman" from 
 head to foot ; but as to his face, there was no more expression 
 in it than in the face of a Chinese lady on a teacup. On 
 Cooper's giving one of his gunpowder explosions of passion, I 
 exclaimed, "fine, very fine!" "Pardon mo," said ray friend 
 Snivers, "this is damnable !— the gesture, my dear sir, only 
 look at the gesture ! how horrible ! do you not observe that the 
 actor slaps his forehead, whereas, the passion not having ar- 
 rived at the proper height, he should only have slapped his— 
 pocket-flap? — this figure of rhetoric is a most .Important stage 
 trick, and the proper management of it is what peculiarly dis- 
 tinguishes the great actor from the mere plodding mechanical 
 buffoon. Different degrees of passion require different slaps, 
 which we critics have reduced to a perfect manual, improving 
 upon the principle adopted by Frederic of Prussia, by deciding 
 that an actor, like a soldier, is a mere machine ; as thus— the 
 actor, for a minor burst of passion merely slaps his pocket-hole; 
 good!— for a major burst, he slaps his breast; — very good 1 — 
 but for a burst maximus, he whacks away at his forehead, like 
 a brave fellow ;— this is excellent I— nothing can be finer than an 
 exit slapping the forehead from one end of the stage to the 
 other." " Exc^t," replied I, "one of those slaps on the breast, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 77 
 
 •wMcli I have sometimes admired in some of our fafc heroes and 
 heroines, which make their whole body shake and quiver like 
 a pyramid of jelly." 
 
 The Philadelphian had Ustened to this conversation with pro- 
 found attention, and appeared delighted with Snivers' mechan- 
 ical strictures ; 'twas natural enough in a man who chose an 
 actor as he would a grenadier. He took the opportunity of a 
 pause, to enter into a long conversation with my friend ; and 
 was receiving a prodi£;ious fund of information concerning the 
 true mode of emphasising conjunctions, shifting scenes, snuff- 
 ing candles, and making thunder and lightning, better than you 
 can get every day from the sky, as practised at the royal thea- 
 tres ; when, as ill luck would have it, they happened to run 
 their heads full butt against a new reading. Now this was "a 
 stumper," as our friend Paddle would say; for the Philadel- 
 phians are as inveterate new-reading hunters as the cockneys ; 
 and, for aught I know, as well skilled in finding them out. The 
 Philadelphian thereupon met the cockney on his own ground ; 
 and at it they went, like two inveterate curs at a bone. Snivers 
 quoted Theobald, Hanmer, and a host of learned commenta- 
 tors, who have pinned themselves on the sleeve of Shakspeai-e's 
 immortahty, and made the old bard, like General Washington, 
 in General Washington's life, a most diminutive figure in his 
 own book ; — ^his opponent chose Johnson for his bottle-holder, 
 and thundered him forward like an elephant to bear down the 
 ranks of the enemy. I was not long in discovering that these two 
 precious judges had got hold of that unlucky passage of Shaks- 
 peare which, hke a straw, has tickled, and puzzled, and con- 
 founded many a somniferous buzzard of past and present time. 
 It was the celebrated wish of Desdemona, that heaven had 
 made her such a man as OtheUo.— Snivers insisted, that " the 
 gentle Desdemona" merely wished for such a man for a hus- 
 band, which in aU conscience was a modest wish enough, and 
 very natural in a young lady who might possibly have had a 
 predilection for flat noses; like a certain philosophical great 
 man of our day. The Philadelphian contended with all the ve- 
 hemence of a member of congress, moving the house to have 
 "whereas," or " also," or "nevertheless," stnick out of a biU, 
 that the young lady wished heaven had made her a man in- 
 stead of a woman, in order that she might have an opportunity 
 of seeing the "anthropophagi, and the men whose heads do 
 grow beneath their shoulders;" which was a very natural 
 wish, considering the curiosity of the sex. On being referred 
 
78 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 to, I incontinently decided in favour of the honourable member 
 who spoke last ; inasmuch as I think it was a very foolish, and 
 therefore very natural, wish for a young lady to make before 
 a man she wished to marry. It was, moreover, an indication 
 of the violent incUnation she felt to wear the breeches, which 
 was afterwards, in aU probability, gratified, if we may judge 
 from the title of "our captain's captain," given her by Cassio, 
 a phrase which, in my opinion, indicates that Othello was, at 
 that time, most ignominiously hen-pecked. I believe my argu- 
 ment staggered Snivers himself, for he looked confoundedly 
 queer, and said not another word on the subject. 
 
 A little while after, at it he went again on another tack ; 
 and began to find fault with Cooper's manner of dying:—" it 
 was not natui'al," he said, for it had lately been demonstrated, 
 by a learned doctor of physic, that when a man is mortally 
 stabbed, he ought to take a flying leap of at least five feet, and 
 drop down "dead as a salmon in a fishmonger's basket." — 
 Whenever a man, in the predicament above mentioned, de- 
 parted from this fundamental rule, by falling flat down, like a 
 log, and rolling about for two or three minutes, making 
 speeches all the time, the said learned doctor maintained that 
 it was owing to the waywardness of the human mind, which 
 delighted in flying in the face of nature, and dying in defiance 
 of all her established rules. — I rephed, "for my part, I held 
 that every man had a right of dying in whatever position he 
 pleased ; and that the mode of doing it depended altogether on 
 the peculiar character of the person going to die. A Persian 
 could not die in peace unless he had his face turned to the east; 
 — a Mahometan would always choose to have his towards 
 Mecca; a Frenchman might prefer this mode of throwing a 
 somerset; but Mynheer Van Brumblebottom, the Eoscius of 
 Eotterdam, always chose to thunder down on his seat of 
 honour whenever he received a mortal wound. — Being a man 
 of ponderous dimensions, this had a most electrifying effect, 
 for the whole theatre "shook lilie Olympus at the nod of 
 Jove." The Philadelphian was immediately inspired with a 
 pun, and swore that Mynheer must be great in a dying scene, 
 since he knew how to make the most of his latter end. 
 
 It is the inveterate cry of stage critics, that an actor does 
 not perform the chaisicter naturally, if, by chance, he happens 
 not to die exactly as they would have him. I think the exhi- 
 bition of a play at Pekin would suit them exactly ; and I wish, 
 with all my heart, they would go there and see one : nature is 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 79 
 
 there imitated -with the most scrupulous exactness in every tri- 
 fling particular. Here an unhappy lady or gentleman, who 
 happens unluckily to be poisoned or stabbed, is left on the 
 stage to writhe and groan, and make faces at the audienca, 
 until the poet pleases they should die ; whUe the honest folks 
 of the dramatis personce, bless their hearts ! all crowd round 
 and yield most potent assistance, by crying and lamenting 
 most vociferously! the audience, tender souls, pull out their 
 white pocket handkerchiefs, wipe their eyes, blow their noses, 
 and swear it is natural as life, whUe the poor actor is left to 
 die without .common Christian comfort. In China, on the con- 
 trary, the first thing they do is to run for the doctor and 
 tehoouc, or notary. The audience are entertained throughout 
 the fifth act with a learned consultation of physicians, and if 
 the patient must die, he does it secuTidum artem, and always is 
 allowed time to niaJse his wUl. The celebrated Chow-Chow 
 was the completest hand I ever saw at killing himself ; he al- 
 ways carried under his robe a bladder of bull's blood, which, 
 when he gave the mortal stab, spirted out, to the infinite de- 
 light of the audience. Not that the ladies of China are more 
 fond of the sight of blood than those of our own country ; on 
 the contrary, they are remarkably sensitive in this particular; 
 and we are told by the great Linkum Fidelius, that the beauti- 
 ful Ninny Consequa, one of the ladies of the emperor's serag- 
 lio, once fainted away on seeing a favourite slave's nose bleed ; 
 since which time refinement has been carried to such a pitch, 
 that a buskined hero is not allowed to run himself through the 
 body in the face of the audience.— The immortal Chow-Chow, 
 in conformity to this absurd prejudice, whenever he plays the 
 part of Othello, which is reckoned his master-piece, always 
 keeps a bold front, stabs himself slUy behind, and is dead 
 before any body suspects that he has given the mortal blow. 
 
 P.S. Just as this was going to press, I was informed by 
 Evergreen that Othello had not been performed here the Lord 
 knows when; no matter, I am not the first that has criticised 
 a play without seeing it, and this critique wiU answer for the 
 last performance, if that was a dozen years -ago. 
 
so SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 NO. VIL-SATUKDAY, APRIL 4, 1807. 
 
 LETTER FEOM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB EELI KAHN^ 
 
 TO ASEM HACCHEJVI, PEINCIPAL SLAVE-DEIVEE TO fflS HIGHNESS 
 THE BASHAW OP TRIPOLI. 
 
 I PROMISED in a former letter, good Asem, that I would fur- 
 nish thee with a few hints respecting the nature of the govern^ 
 ment by which I am held in durance. — Though my inquiries 
 for that purpose have been industrious, yet I am not perfectly 
 satisfied with their results; for thou mayest easily imagine 
 that the vision of a captive is overshadowed by the mists of 
 illusion and prejudice, and the horizon of his speculations must 
 be limited indeed. I find that the people of this country are 
 strangely at a loss to determiae the nature and proper char- 
 acter of their government. Even their dervises are extremely 
 in the dark as to this particular, and are contiaually indulging 
 in the most preposterous disquisitions on the subject: some 
 have insisted that it savours of an aristocracy ; others main- 
 tain that it is a pure democracy ; and a third set of theorists 
 declare absolutely that it is nothing more nor less than a 
 mobocracy. The latter, I must confess, though stUl wide in 
 error, have come nearest to the truth. Tou of course must 
 understand the meaning of these difcerent words, as they 
 are derived from the ancient Greek language, and bespeak 
 loudly the verbal poverty of these poor infidels, who cannot 
 utter a learned phrase without laying the dead languages 
 under contribution. A man, my dear Asem, who talks good 
 sense in his native tongue, is held in tolerable estimation in this 
 country; but a fool who clothes his feeble ideas in a foreign or 
 antique garb, is bowed down to as a hterary prodigy. While 
 I conversed with these people in plain EngKsh, I was but little 
 attended to; but the moment I prosed away in Greek, every 
 one looked up to me with veneration as an oracle. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 81 
 
 Although the dervises differ widely in the particulars above 
 mentioned, yet they all agree ia terming their government one 
 of the most pacific in the known world. I cannot help pitying 
 their ignorance, and smiling, at times, to see into what ridicu- 
 lous errors those nations will wander who are unenlightened 
 by the precepts of Mahomet, our divine prophet, and unin- 
 structed by the five hundred and forty-nine books of wisdom 
 of the immortal Ibrahim Hassan al Fusti. To call this nation 
 pacifl.c ! most preposterous ! it reminds me of the title assumed 
 by the sheik of that murderous tribe of wild Arabs, that deso- 
 late the valleys of Belsaden, who styles himself stae of cour- 
 tesy—beam OF THE mercy-seat! 
 
 The simple truth of the matter is, that these people are 
 totally ignorant of their own true character ; for, according to 
 the best of my observation, they are the most warHke, and, I 
 must say, the most savage nation that I have as yet discovered 
 among all the barbarians. They are not only at war, in their 
 own way, with almost every nation on earth, but they are at 
 the same time engaged in the most complicated knot of civil 
 wars that ever infested any poor unhappy country on which 
 Allah has denounced his malediction ! 
 
 To let thee at once into a secret, which is unknown to these 
 people themselves, their government is a pure unadulterated 
 LOGOCEACY, Or government of words. The whole nation does 
 every thing viva voce, or by word of mouth; and in this 
 manner is one of the most miMtary nations in existence. Every 
 man who has what is hero called the gift of the gab, that is, a 
 plentiful stock of verbosity, becomes a soldier outright ; and is 
 forever in a mihtant state. The country is entirely defended 
 vi et lingua; that is to say, by force of tongues. The account 
 which I lately wrote to our friend, the snorcr, respecting- the 
 immense army of six hundred men, makes nothing against 
 this observation; that formidable body being kept up, as I 
 have already observed, only to amuse their fair country- 
 women by their splendid appearance and nodding plumes ; and 
 are by way of distinction, denominated the "defenders of the 
 fair." 
 
 In a logocracy thou well knowest there is little or no occasion 
 for fire-arms, or any such destructive weapons. Every offen- 
 sive or defensive measure is enforced by wordy battle, and 
 paper war; he who has the longest tont,ue or readiest quill, is 
 sure to gain the victory,— will carry horror, abuse, and ink- 
 shed into the very trenches of the enemy ; and, without mercy 
 
82 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 or remorse, put men, women, and children to the point of the^ 
 penl 
 
 There is still preserved in this country some remains of that 
 gothic spirit of knight-errantry, which so much annoyed the 
 faithful in the middle ages of the hegira. As, notwithstandiag 
 their martial disposition, they are a people much given to 
 commerce and agriculture, and must, necessarily, at certain 
 seasons be engaged in these employments, they have accommo- 
 dated themselves by appointing knights, or constant warriors, 
 incessant brawlers, similar to those who, in former ages, swore 
 eternal enmity to the followers of our divine prophet. — These 
 knights, denominated editors or slang-whangers, are ap- 
 pointed in every town, village, and district, to carry on both 
 foreign and internal warfare, and may be said to keep up a 
 constant firing "in words." Oh, my friend, could you but 
 witness the enormities sometunes committed by these tremen- 
 dous slang-whangers, your very turban would rise with horror 
 and astonishment. I have seen them extend their ravages even 
 into the kitchens of their opponents, and annihilate the very 
 cook with a blast ; and I do assure thee, I beheld one of these 
 warriors attack a most venerable bashaw, and at one stroke of 
 his pen lay him open from the waistband of his breeches to his 
 chin! 
 
 There has been a civU war carrying on with great violence 
 for some time past, in consequence of a conspiracy among the 
 higher classes, to dethrone his highness the present bashaw, 
 and place another in his stead. I was mistaken when I for- 
 merly asserted to thee that this dissatisfaction arose from his 
 wearing red breeches. It is true the nation have long held 
 that colour in great detestation, in consequence of a dispute 
 they had some twenty years since with the barbarians of the 
 British islands. The colour, however, is again rising into 
 favour, as the ladies have transferred it to their heads from the 
 
 bashaw's body. The true reason, I am told, is, that the 
 
 bashaw absolutely refuses to believe in the deluge, and in the 
 story of Balaam's ass ;— maintaining that this animal was never 
 yet permitted to talk except in a genuine logoeracy; where, 
 it is true, his voice may often be heard, and is listened to with 
 reverence, as " the voice of the sovereign people." Nay, so far 
 did he carry his obstinacy, that he absolutely invited a pro- 
 fessed antediluvian from the Gallic empire, who illuminated 
 
 the whole country with his principles and his nose. This 
 
 was enough to set the nation in a blaze ;— every slang- whanger 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 83 
 
 resorted to kLs tongue or his pen ; and for seven years have 
 they carried on a most inhuman war, in which vohunes of 
 ■words have been expended, oceans of ink have been shed; 
 nor has any mercy been shown to age, sex, or condition. Every 
 day have these slang- whangers made furious attacks on each 
 other, and iipon their respective adherents : discharging their 
 heavy artillery, consisting of large sheets loaded with scound- 
 rel ! villain ! har ! rascal ! numbskuU ! nincompoop ! dunderhead ! 
 wiseacre ! blockhead ! jackass ! and I do swear, by my beard, 
 though I know thou wilt scarcely credit me, that in some of 
 these skirmishes the grand bashaw himself has been wofully 
 pelted ! yea, most ignominiously pelted !— and yet have these 
 talking desperadoes escaped without the bastinado ! 
 
 Every now and then a slang-whanger, who has a longer 
 head, or rather a longer tongue than the rest, will elevate his 
 piece and discharge a shot quite across the ocean, levelled at the 
 head of the emperor of France, the king of England, or, wouldst 
 thou beheve it, oh! Asem, even at his sublime highness the 
 bashaw of Tripoli ! these long pieces are loaded with single baU, 
 or language, as tyrant! usurper! robber! tiger! monster! and 
 thou mayest well suppose they occasion great distress and dis- 
 may in the camps of the enemy, and are marvellously annoy- 
 ing to the crowned heads at which they are directed. The slang- 
 whanger, though perhaps the mere champion of a village, having 
 fired ofE his shot, struts about with great self -congratulation, 
 chuckling at the prodigious bustle he must have occasioned, 
 and seems to ask of every stranger, "well, sir, what do they 
 think of me in Europe?"* This is sufficient to show you the 
 manner in whicli these bloody, or rather windy fellows fight ; 
 it is the only mode allowable in a logocracy or government of 
 
 NOTE, BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 * The sage Mustapha, when he wrote the above paragraph, had probably in his 
 eye the following anecdote; related either by Linkum Fidelius, or Josephus Miller- 
 ius. vulgarly called Joe Miller, ot facetious memory. 
 
 The captain of a slave- vessel, on his first landing on the coast of Guinea, obsei-ved, 
 under a palm-tree, a negro chief, sitting most majestically on a stump; while two 
 women, with wooden spoons, were administering his favourite pottage of boiled 
 
 I ice; which, as his imperial majesty was a little greedy, would part of it escape the 
 ilace of destination and run down his chin. The watchful attendants were partic- 
 ularly careful to intercept these scapegrace particles, and return them to their 
 '"ftti'oper port of enti-y. As the captain approached, in order to admire this curious 
 exhibition of royalty, the great chief clapped his hands to his sides, and saluted his 
 visitor with the following pompous question, " well, sir I what do they say of me in 
 England?" 
 
84 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 words. I would also observe that their civil wars have a 
 thousand ramifications. 
 
 While the fury of the battle rages in the metropoUs, every 
 little town and village has a distinct broU, growing hke excres- 
 cences out of the grand national altercation, or rather agitating 
 within it, like those compHcated pieces of mechanism where 
 there is a " wheel within a wheel." 
 
 But in nothing is the verbose nature of this government 
 more evident than in its grand national divan, or congress, 
 where the laws are framed; this is a blustering, windy 
 assembly, where everything is carried by noise, tumult and 
 debate ; for thou must know, that the members of this assem- 
 bly do not meet together to find wisdom in the multitude of 
 counsellors, but to wrangle, call each other hard names, and 
 hear themselves talk. When the congress opens, the bashaw 
 first sends them a long message, i.e., a huge mass of words— 
 vox et preterea nihil, all meaning nothing ; because it only teUs 
 them what they perfectly know already. Then the whole 
 assembly are thrown into a ferment, and have a long talk 
 about the quantity of words that are to be returned in answer 
 to this message ; and here arises many disputes about the cor- 
 rection of "if so be's,"and "how so ever's." A month,, per- 
 haps, is spent in thus determining the precise number of words 
 the answer shall contain ; and then another, most probably, in 
 concluding whether it shaU be carried to the bashaw on foot, 
 on horseback, or in coaches. Having settled this weighty 
 matter, they next fall to work upon the message itself, and 
 hold as much chattering over it as so many magpies over an 
 addled egg. This done they divide the message into small 
 portions, and dehver them into the hands of little juntoes of 
 talkers, called committees : these juntoes have each a world of 
 talking about their respective paragraphs, and return the 
 results to the grand divan, which forthwith falls to and retalks 
 the matter over more earnestly than ever. Now, after all, it is 
 an even chance that the subject of this prodigious arguing, 
 quarrelling, and talking, is an affair of no importance, and 
 ends entirely in smoke. May it not then be said, the whole 
 nation have been talking to no purpose? The people, in fact, 
 seem to be somewhat conscious of this propensity to talk, by 
 which they are characterized, and have a favourite proverb on 
 the subject, viz. : " all talk and no cider;" this is particularly 
 applied when their congress, or assembly of all the sage 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 85 
 
 chatterers of the Bation, have chattered through a -whole 
 session, in a time of great peril and momentous event, and 
 have done nothing but exhibit the length of their tongues and 
 the emptiness of their heads. This has been the case more 
 than once, my friend; and to let thee into a secret, I have 
 been told in confidence, that there have been absolutely several 
 old women smuggled into congress from different parts of the 
 empire ; who, having once got on the breeches, as thou mayest 
 well imagine, have taken the lead in debate, and overwhelmed 
 the whole assembly with their garrulity; for my part, as 
 times go, I do not see why old women should not be as chgible 
 to pubUc councils as old men who possess their dispositions ;— 
 they certainly are eminently possessed of the qualifications 
 requisite to govern in a logocracy. 
 
 Nothing, as I have repeatedly insisted, can be done in this 
 coimtry without talMng ; but they take so long to talk over a 
 measure, that by the time they have determined upon adopt- 
 ing it, the period has elapsed which was proper for carry- 
 it into effect. Unhappy nation! — thus torn to pieces by in- 
 testine talks ! never, I fear, wiU it be restored to tranquillity 
 and silence. "Words are but breath ; breath is but air ; and air 
 put into motion is nothing but wind. This vast empire, there- 
 fore, may be compared to nothing more or less than a mighty 
 windmUl, and the orators, and the chatterers, and the slang- 
 whangers, are the breezes that put it in motion; unluckily, 
 however, they are apt to blow different ways, and their blasts 
 counteracting each other— the mUl is perplexed, the wheels 
 stand stUl, the grist is unground, and the miller and his family 
 starved. 
 
 Every thing partakes of the windy nature of the govern- 
 ment. In case of any domestic grievance, or an insult from a 
 foreign foe, the people are all in a buzz ;— tbwn-meetings are 
 immediately held where the quidmmcs of the city repair, each 
 hke an atlas, with the cares of the whole nation upon his 
 shoulders, each resolutely bent upon saving his country, and 
 each swelling and stmtting like a turkey-cock; puffed up with 
 words, and wind, and nonsense. After busthng, and buzzing, 
 and bawling for some time ; and after each man has shown 
 himself to be indubitably the greatest personage in the meeting, 
 they pass a string of resolutions, i.e. words, which were pre- 
 viously prepared for the purpose; these resolutions, are whim- 
 sically denominated the sense of the meeting, and are sent off 
 
86 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 for the mstruction of the reigning bashaw, who receives them 
 graciously, puts them into his red breeches pocket, forgets to 
 read them — and so the matter ends. 
 
 As to his highness, the present bashaw, who is at the very 
 top of the logocracy, never was a dignitary better qualified for 
 his station. He is a man of superlative vontosity, and com^ 
 parable to nothing but a huge bladder of ^vind. He talks of 
 vanquishing all opposition by the force of reason and philo- 
 sophy ; throws his gauntlet at all the nations of the earth, and 
 defies them to meet him— on the field of argument !— is the na^ 
 tional dignity insulted, a case in which his highness of Tripoli 
 
 would immediately call forth his forces; the bashaw of 
 
 America— utters a speech. Does a foreign iuvador molest the 
 commerce in the very mouth of the harbours ; an insult which 
 would induce his highness of Tripoh to order out his fieets ;-- 
 his highness of America — utters a speech. Are the free citizens 
 of America dragged from on board the vessels of their country, 
 
 and forcibly detained in the war ships of another power hia 
 
 highness— utters a speech. Is a peaceable citizen killed by the 
 marauders of a foreign power, on the very shores of his coun- 
 try his liighness utters a speech. — Does an alarming in- 
 surrection break out in a distant part of the empire his 
 
 highness utters a speech ! — nay, more, for here he shows his 
 " energies;" — he most intrepidly despatches a courier on horse- 
 back and orders him to ride one hundred and twenty miles a 
 day, with a most formidable army of proclamations, i.e. a 
 collection of words, packed up in his saddle bags. He is in- 
 structed to show no favour nor affection ; but to charge the 
 thickest ranks of the enemy; and to specify and batter by 
 words the conspiracy and the conspirators out of existence. 
 Heavens, my friends, what a deal of blustering is here ! it re- 
 minds me of a dunghill cock in a farm-yard, who, have accident- 
 ally in his scratchings found a worm, immediately begins a 
 most vociferous cackling ;— calls around him his hen-hearted 
 companions, who run chattering from all quarters to gobble up 
 the poor little worm that happened to turn under his eye. Oh, 
 Asem ! Asem ! on what a prodigious great scale is every thing 
 in this country ! 
 
 Thus, then, I conclude my observations. The infidel nations 
 have each a separate characteristic trait, by which they may 
 be distinguished from each other ; — the Spaniards, for instance) 
 may be said to sleep upon every affair of importance ;— the 
 Italians to fiddle upon every thing;— the French to dance upon 
 
SALMAGUNDI. g' 
 
 every thing;— the Gfermans to smoke upon every thins;;— th( 
 British islanders to eat upon eveiy thing;— and the windy sub 
 jects of the American logocracy to talk upon every thing. 
 
 For ever thine, 
 
 MUSTAPHA. 
 
 FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 
 
 How oft in musing mood my heart recalls, 
 From grey-beard father Time's obUvious halls, 
 The modes and maxims of my early day, 
 Long in those dark recesses stow'd away: 
 Drags once more to the cheerful realms of light 
 Those buckram fashions, long since lost in night, 
 And makes, Uke Elndor's witch, once more to rise 
 My grogram grandames to my raptiu^d eyes ! 
 
 Shades of my fathers ! in your pasteboard skirts, 
 Tour broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts, 
 Your formal bag- wigs — wide-extended cuffs. 
 Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffe ! 
 Gods! how ye strut, at times, in aU your state, 
 Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate! 
 I see ye move the solemn minuet o'er. 
 The modest foot scarce rising from the floor; 
 No thundering rigadoon with boisterous prance, 
 No pigeon- wing disturb your contre-danse. 
 But silent as the gentle Lethe's tide, 
 Adown the festive maze ye peaceful glide! 
 
 Still in my mental eye each dame appears — 
 Each modest beauty of departed years ; 
 Close by mamma I see her stately march 
 Or sit, in aU the majesty of starch; — 
 When for the dance a stranger seeks her hand, 
 I see her doubting, hesitating, stand; 
 Yield to his claim with most fastidious grace, 
 And sigh for her intended in his place ! 
 
 Ah! golden days! when every gentle fair 
 On sacred Sabbath conn'd with pious care 
 Her holy Bible, or her prayer-book o'er. 
 Or studied honest Bimyan's drowsy lore; 
 Travell'd with bim the Pilgeim's Progress through, 
 And storm'd the famous town of Man-soul too : 
 
88 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 Beat Eye and Ear-gate up with thundering jar, 
 And fought triumphant through the Holy Wae; 
 Or if, perchance, to lighter works inclined. 
 They sought with novels to relax the mind, 
 'Twas Grandison's politely formal page 
 Or Clelia or Pamela were the rage. 
 
 No plays were then — theatrics were unknown — 
 A learned pig— a dancing monkey shown — 
 The feats of Punch — a cunning juggler's sUght, 
 Were sure to fiU each hosom with dehght. 
 An honest, simple, humdrum race we were, 
 Undazzled yet by fashion's wDdering glare 
 Our manners unreserved, devoid of guile, 
 We knew not then the modem monster style : 
 Style, that with pride each empty bosom swells, 
 Puffs boys to manhood, little girls to belles. 
 
 Scarce from the nursery freed, our gentle fair 
 Are yielded to the dancing-master's care ; 
 And e'er the head one mite of sense can gain, 
 Are introduced 'mid foUy's frippery train. 
 A stranger's grasp no longer gives alarms, 
 Our fair surrender to their very arms. 
 And in the insidious waltz * will swim and twine 
 And whirl and languish tenderly divine ! 
 
 NOTES, BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 * [Waltz]. As many of the retired matrons of this city, unskilled In " gestie 
 lore," are doubtless ignorant of the movements and figrures of this modest exhibi- 
 tion, I will endeavour to give some account of it, in order that they may leam what 
 odd capers their daughters sometimes cut when from under their guardian wings. 
 
 On a signal being given by the music, the gentleman seizes the lady round her 
 waist; the lady, scorning to be outdone in courtesy, very politely takes the gentle. 
 man round the neck, with one arm resting against his shoulder to prevent en- 
 croachments. Away then they go, about, and about, and about "about what, 
 
 Sir?" about the room. Madam, to be sure. The whole economy of this dance 
 
 consists in turning round and round the room in a certain measured step; and it is 
 truly astonishing that this continued revolution does not set all their heads swimming 
 like a top; but I have been positively assured that it only occa.>iions a gentle sensa- 
 tion which is marvellously agreeable. In the course of this circumnavigation, the 
 dancers, in order to give the charm of variety, are continually changing their rela- 
 tive situations; now the gentleman, meaning no harm in the world. I assure you 
 
 Madam, carelessly flings his arm about the lady's neck, with an air of celestial im- 
 pudence; and anon, the lady, meaning as little harm as the gentleman, takes him 
 round the waist with most ingenious modest languishment, to the great delight of 
 numerous spectators and amateurs, who generally form a ring, as the mob do 
 about a pair of amazons pulling caps, or a couple of fighting mastiffs. 
 
 After continuing this divine interchange of hands, arms, et cetera, for half an 
 
8ALMA0UNDI. 89 
 
 Oh, how I hate this loving, hugging, dance ; 
 
 This imp of Germany — brought up in France: 
 
 Nor can I see a niece its windings trace. 
 
 But all the honest blood glows in my face. 
 
 " Sad, sad refinement this," I often say, 
 
 " 'Tis modesty indeed reiined away I 
 
 " Let France its whim, its sparkling wit supply, 
 
 " The easy grace that captivates the eye; 
 
 " But cm-se their waltz— their loose lascivious arts, 
 
 " That smooth our manners, to corrupt our hearts!" 
 
 Where now those books, from which in days of yore 
 
 Our mothers gain'd their hterary store? 
 
 Alas ! stiff-skirted Grandison gives place 
 
 To novels of a new^ and rakish race ; 
 
 And honest Bimyan's pious dreaming lore, 
 
 To the lascivious rhapsodies of Moore. 
 
 And, last of all, behold the mimic stage, 
 Its morals lend to polish off the age. 
 
 hour or so, the lady begins to tire, and with " eyes upraised," in most bewitching 
 languor petitions her partner for a little more support. This is always given with- 
 out hesitation. The lady leans gently on his shoulder, their arms entwine In a 
 
 thousand seducing, mischievous curves don't be alarmed, Madam closer and 
 
 closer they approaich each other, and in conclusion, the parties being overcome 
 with ecstatic fatigue, the lady seems almost sinking into the gentleman's arms, and 
 
 then ■' Well, Sir, and what then?" lord, Madam, how should I knowl 
 
 * My friend Pindar, and, in fact, our whole junto, has been accused of an un- 
 reasonable hostility to the Fi-ench nation : and I am informed by a Parisian corres- 
 pondent, that our first number played the very devil in the court of St. Cloud. His 
 imperial majesty got into a most outrageous passion, and being withal a waspish 
 little gentleman, had nearly kicked his bosom friend, Talleyrand, out of the cabinet, 
 in the paroxysms of his wrath. He insisted upon it that the nation was assailed in 
 its most vital part; being, like Achilles, extremely sensitive to any attacks upon the 
 heel. When my correspondent sent off his despatches, it was still in doubt what 
 measures would be adopted ; but it was strongly suspected that vehement repre- 
 sentations would be made to our government. Willing, therefore, to save our exe- 
 cutive from any embarrassment on the subject, and above all from the disagreeable 
 alternative of sending an apology by the Hornet, we do assure Mr. Jefferson, that 
 there is nothing further from our thoughts than the subversion of the Gallic empire, 
 or any attack on the iutere-sts, tranquillit.y, or reputation of the nation at large, 
 which we seriously declare possesses the highest rank in our estimation. Nothing 
 less than the national welfare could have induced us to trouble ourselves with this 
 explanation; and in the name of the junto. I once more declare, that when we toast 
 a Frenchman, we merely mean one of these inconnua, who swarmed to this country, 
 from the kitchens and barbers' shops of Nantz, Bordeaux, and Marseilles; played 
 game of leap-frog at all our balls and assemblies; — set this unhappy town hopping 
 mad ; — and passed themselves off on our tender-hearted damsels for unfortunate 
 noblemen— ruined in the revolution! such only can wince at the lash, and accuse us 
 
 ""Of severity; and we should be mortified in the extreme if they did not feel our well- 
 
 ::::intended castigation. 
 
90 SALMAQUNDL- 
 
 Witli flimsy farce, a comedy miscall'd, 
 Gamish'd with vulgar cant, and proverbs bald. 
 With puns most puny, and a plenteous store 
 Of smutty jokes, to catch a gallery roar. 
 Or see, more fatal, graced with every art 
 To charm and captivate the female heart, 
 The false, " the gallant, gay Lothario," smiles,* 
 And loudly boasts his base seductive wiles; — 
 In glowing colours paints Calista's wrongs, 
 And with voluptuous scenes the tale prolongs, 
 When Cooper lends his fascinating powers. 
 Decks A^ce itself in bright alluring flowers. 
 Pleased with his manly grace, his youthful fire, 
 Our fair are lured the villain to admire ; 
 While humbler virtue, like a stalking horse, 
 Struts clumsily and croaks in honest Morse. 
 
 Ah, hapless days ! when trials thus combined, 
 In pleasing garb assail the female mind ; 
 When every smooth insidious snare is spread 
 To sap the morals and delude the head ! 
 Not Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, 
 To prove their faith and virtue here below, 
 Could more an angel's helping hand require 
 To guide their steps iminjured through the fire. 
 Where had but heaven its guardian aid denied, , 
 The holy trio in the proof had died. 
 If, then, their manly vigour sought supplies 
 From the bright stranger in celestial guise, 
 Alas ! can we from feebler nature's claim, 
 To brave seduction's ordeal, free from blame; 
 To pass through fire unhurt like golden ore. 
 Though ANGEL MISSIONS bless the earth no more I 
 
 * [Fair Penitent]. The story of this play, it told in its native language, would 
 exhibit a scene of guilt and shame, which no modest ear could listen to without 
 shrinking with disgust; but, arrayed as it is in all the splendour of harmonious, 
 rich, and polished verse, it steals into the heart like some gay, luxurious, smooth- 
 faced villain, and betrays it insensibly to immorality and vice; our very sympathy 
 is enlisted on the side of guilt; and the piety of Altatnont, and the gentleness of 
 Lavinia, are lost in the splendid debaucheries of the "gallant, gay Lothario," and 
 the blustering, hollow repentance of the fair Calisto, whose sorrow reminds us 
 of that of Pope's Heloise— " I mourn the lover, not lament the fault." Nothing is 
 more easy than to banish such plays from the stage. Were our ladies, instead of 
 crowding to see them again and again repeated, to discourage their exhibition by 
 absence, the stage would soon be Indeed the school of morality, and the number ot 
 " Fair Penitents," in all probability, diminished. 
 
SALMAQUNDL ; 91 
 
 NO. VIII.-SATURDAY, APRIL 18 1807. 
 
 BY ANTHONY EVERGKEEN, GENT. 
 
 " In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, 
 Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow; 
 Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, 
 There is no living with thee— nor without thee." 
 
 "NEV3E, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, has there 
 been known a more backward spring." Tliis is the universal 
 remark among the almanac quidnuncs and weather-wisacres 
 of the day; and I have heard it at least fifty-five times from 
 old Mrs. Cockloft, who, poor woman, is one of those walking 
 almanacs that foretell every snow, rain, or frost, by the shoot- 
 ing of corns, a pain in the hones, or an "ugly stitch in the 
 side." I do not recoUect, in the whole course of my life, to 
 have seen the month of March indulge in such untoward capers, 
 caprices, and coquetries, as it has done this year: I might have 
 forgiven these vagaries, had they not completely knocked up 
 my friend Langstaif, whose feelings are ever at the mercy of a 
 weathercock, whose spirits sink and rise with the mercury of 
 a barometer, and to whom an east wind is as obnoxious as a 
 Sicilian sirocco. He was tempted some time since, by the fine- 
 ness of the weather, to dress himself with more than ordinary 
 care and take his morning stroU; but before he had half fin- 
 ished his peregrination, he was utterly discomfited, and driven 
 home by a tremendous squall of wind, haU, rain, and snow ; 
 or, as he testily termed it, "a most villainous congregation of 
 vapors." 
 
 This was too much for the patience of friend Launcelot ; he 
 declared he would honour the weather no longer ia its whim- 
 whams; and, according to his immemorial custom on these 
 occasions, retreated in high dudgeon to his elbow-chair to lie in 
 of the spleen and rail at nature for being so fantastical :— " con- 
 found the jade," he frequently exclaims, " what a pity nature 
 
92 SALMAOUNDI. 
 
 had not been of the masculine instead of the feminine gender; 
 the almanac makers might then have calculated with some de- 
 gree of cei-tainty." 
 
 When LangstaflE invests himself with the spleen, and gives 
 audience to the blue devils from his elbow-chair, I would not 
 advise any of his friends to come within gunshot of his citadel 
 with the benevolent purpose of administering consolation or 
 amusement : for he is then as crusty and crabbed as that famous 
 coiner of false money, Diogenes himself. Indeed, his room is 
 at such times inaccessible ; and old Pompey is the only soul 
 that can gain admission, or ask a question with impunity ; the 
 truth is, that on these occasions, there is not a straw's differ- 
 ence between them, for Pompey is as grum and grim and cyni- 
 cal as his master. 
 
 Launcelot has now been above three weeks in this desolate 
 situation, and has therefore had but httle to do in our last 
 number. As he could not be prevailed on to give any account 
 of himself in our Introduction, I will take the opportunity of 
 his confinement, while his back is turned, to give a shght 
 sketch of his character ;— fertile in whim- whams and bachelor- 
 isms, but rich in many of the sterling qualities of our nature. 
 Annexed to this article, our readers wiU perceive a striking 
 likeness of my friend, which was taken by that cunning rogue 
 Will Wizard, who peeped through the key-hole and sketched 
 it off as honest Launcelot sat by the fire, wrapped up in his 
 flannel robe de chambre, and indulging in a mortal fit of the 
 hyp. Now take my word for it, gentle reader, this is the most 
 auspicious moment in which to touch off the phiz of a genuine 
 humorist. 
 
 Of the antiquity of the LangstaflE family I can say but little; 
 except that I have no doubt it is equal to that of most lamilies 
 who have the privilege of making their own pedigree, without 
 the impertinent interposition of a college of heralds. My 
 friend Launcelot is not a man to blazon any tl 'ag; but I have 
 heard, him talk with great complacency of Lis ancestor, Sir 
 Rowland, who was a dashing buck in the days of Hardiknute, 
 and broke the head of a gigantic Dane, at a game of quarter- 
 staff, in presence of the whole court. In memory of this gal- 
 lant exploit, Sir Rowland was permitted to take the name of 
 LangstofEe, and to assume, as a crest to his arms, a hand grasp- 
 ing a cudgel. It is, however, a foible so ridiculously common 
 in this country for people to claim consanguinity with all the 
 great personages of their own name in Europe, that I should 
 
SALMAOUNDI. 93 
 
 put but little faith in this family boast of friend Langstaff, did 
 I not know hiTn to be a man of most unquestionable veracity. 
 
 The whole world knows already that my friend is a bache- 
 lor; for he is, or pretends to be, exceedingly proud of his per- 
 sonal independence, and takes care to make it known in all 
 companies where strangers are present. He is forever vaunt- 
 ing the precious state of "single blessedness;" and was not 
 long ago considerably startled at a proposition of one of his 
 great favourites, Miss Sophy Sparkle, ''that old bachelors 
 should be taxed as luxuries." Launcelot immediately hied 
 him home, and wrote a tremendous long representation in 
 their behalf, which I am resolved to publish if it is ever at- 
 tempted to carry the measure into operation. Whether he is 
 sincere in these professions, or whether his present situation 
 is owing to choice or disappointment, he only can tell ; but if 
 he ever does tell, I will suffer myself to be shot by the first 
 lady's eye that can twang an arrow. In his youth he was 
 for ever in love; but it was his misfortune to be continually 
 crossed and rivalled by his bosom friend and contemporary 
 beau, Pindar Cockloft, Esq., for as Langstaff never made a 
 confidant on these occasions, his friend never knew which way 
 his affections pointed; and so, between them both, the lady 
 generally slipped through their fingers. 
 
 It has ever been the misfortune of Launcelot that he could 
 not for the soul of him restrain a good thing ; and this fatality 
 has drawn upon him the ill wiU of many whom he would 
 not have offended for the world. With the kindest heart 
 under heaven, and the most benevolent disposition toward 
 every being around him, he has been continually betrayed by 
 the mischievous vivacity of his fancy, and the good-humoured 
 waggery of his feelings, into satirical sallies which have been 
 treasured up by the invidious, and retailed out with the bitter 
 sneer of malevolence, instead of the playful hilarity of counte- 
 nance which originally sweetened and tempered and disarmed 
 them of their sting.— These misrepresentations have gaiijed 
 him many reproaches and lost him many a friend. 
 
 This unlucky characteristic played the mischief with him in 
 one of his love affairs. He was, as I have before observed, 
 often opposed in his gallantries by that formidable rival, Pin- 
 dar Cockloft, Esq., and a most formidable rival he was; for he 
 had Apollo, the nine muses, together with all the joint tenants 
 of Olympus to back him; and every body knows what im- 
 portant confodorates they are to a lover. Poor Launcelo:t 
 
94 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 stood no chance ; — the lady was cooped up in the poet'a comer 
 of every weekly paper; and at length Pindar attackea her 
 with a sonnet that took up a whole column, in which he enu- 
 merated at least a dozen cardinal virtues, together with innu- 
 merable others of inferior consideration. Launcelot saw his 
 case was desperate, and that unless he sat down forthwith, be- 
 churibimed and be-angeled her to the skies, and put every vir- 
 tue under the sun in requisition, he might as well go hang 
 himself and so make an end of the business. At it, therefore, 
 he went, and was going on very swimmingly, for, in the space 
 of a dozen lines he had enlisted under her command at least 
 three score and ten substantial housekeeping virtues, when, 
 unluckily for Launcelot's reputation as a poet and the lady's as 
 a saint, one of those confounded good thoughts struck his 
 laughter-loving brain; — it was irresistible; away he went full 
 sweep before the wind, ciitting and slashing and tickled to 
 death with his own fun; the consequence was, that by the 
 time he had finished, never was poor lady so most ludicrously 
 lampooned since lampooning came into fashion. But this was 
 not half;— so hugely was Launcelot pleased with this frolic of 
 his wits, that nothing would do but he must show it to the 
 lady, who, as well she might, was mortally offended, and for- 
 bid him her presence. My friend was in despair ; but through 
 the interference of his generous rival, was permitted to make 
 his apology, which, however, most unluckily happened to be 
 rather worse than the original offence ; for though he had 
 studied an eloquent compliment, yet, as ill-luck would have it, 
 a most preposterous whim-wham knocked at his pericranium, 
 and inspired him to say some consummate good things, which 
 all put together amounted to a downright hoax, and provoked 
 the lady's wrath to such a degree that sentence of eternal 
 banishment was awarded against him. 
 
 Launcelot was inconsolable, and determined, in the true 
 style of novel heroics, to make the tour of Europe, and endea- 
 vour to lose the recollection of this misfortune amongst the 
 gayeties of France and the classic charms of Italy ; he accord- 
 ingly took passage in a vessel and pursued his voyage prosper- 
 ously as far as Sandy Hook, where he was seized with a violent 
 fit of sea- sickness ; at which lie was so affronted that he put 
 his portmanteau into the first pilot-boat and returned to towa 
 completely cured of his love and his rage for travelling. 
 
 I pass over the subsequent amours of my friend Langstaffi, 
 being but little acquainted with them; for, as I have already 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 95 
 
 mentioned, he never was known to make a confldant of any- 
 body. He always aflarmed a man must be a fool to fall in love, 
 but an idiot to boast of it ; — ever denominated it the villainous 
 passion ; — lamented that it could not be cudgelled out of the hu- 
 man heart;— and yet could no more hve without being in love 
 with somebody or other than he could without whim-whams. 
 
 My friend Launcelot is a man of excessive irritabiUty of 
 nerve, find I am acquainted with no one so susceptible of the 
 petty " miseries of human life;" yet its keener evils and mis- 
 fortunes he bears without shrinking, and however they may 
 prey in secret on his happiness, he never complains. This was 
 strikingly evinced in an affair where his heart was deeply and 
 irrevocably concerned, and in which his success was ruined by 
 one for whom he had long cherished a warm friendship. The 
 circumstance cut poor Langstaff to the very soul ; he was not 
 seen in company for months afterwards, and for a long time 
 he seemed to retire within himself, and battle with the poig- 
 nancy of his feelings ; but not a murmur or a reproach was 
 heard to fall from his lips, though, at the mention of his 
 friend's name, a shade of melancholy inight be observed steal- 
 ing across his face, and his voice assumed a touching tone, 
 that seemed to say, he remembered his treachery "more in 
 sorrow than ki anger." — This affair has given a slight tinge of 
 sadness to his disposition, which, however, does not prevent 
 "his entering into the amusements of the world; the only 
 effect it occasions, is, that you may occasionally observe him, 
 at the end of a lively conversation, sink for a few minutes into 
 an apparent forgetfulness of surroimding objects, during 
 which time he seems to be indidging in some melancholy 
 retrospection. 
 
 Langstaff inherited from his father a love of literature, a dis- 
 position for castle-building, a mortal enmity to noise, a sove- 
 reign antipathy to cold weather and brooms, and a plentiful 
 stock of whim-whams. From the delicacy of his nerves he is 
 peculiarly sensible to discordant sounds; the rattling of a 
 wheelbarrow is "horrible;" the noise of children " drives him 
 distracted ;" and he once left excellent lodgings merely because 
 the lady of the house wore high-heeled shoes, in which she 
 clattered up and down stairs, till, to use his own emphatic ex- 
 pression, "they made life loathsome" to him. He suffers 
 annual martyrdom from - the razor-edged zephyrs of our 
 "balmy spring," and solemnly declares that the boasted 
 month of May has become a perfect "vagabond." As some 
 
96 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 people have a great antipathy to cats, and can tell when one is 
 locked up in a closet, so Launcelot declares his feelings always 
 announce to him the neighbourhood of a broom ; a household 
 implement which he abominates above all others. Nor is there 
 any living animal in the world that he holds in more utter 
 abhorrence than what is usually termed a notable house- wife; 
 a pestilent being, who, he protests, is the bane of good-fellow- 
 ship, and has a heavy charge to answer for the many QfiEences 
 committed against the ease, comfort, and social enjoyments of 
 sovereign man. He told me not long ago, " that he had rather 
 see one of the weird sisters flourish through his key-hole on a 
 broomstick, than one of the servant maids enter the door with 
 a besom." 
 
 My friend Launcelot is ardent and sincere in his attachments, 
 which are confined to a chosen few, in whose society he loves 
 to give free scope to his whimsical imagioation; he, however, 
 mingles freely with the world, though more as a spectator than 
 an actor; and without an anjciety or hardly a care to please, 
 is generally received with welcome and listened to with com- 
 placency. When he extends his hand it is in a free, open, lib- 
 eral style ; and when you shake it, you feel his honest heart 
 throb in its pulsations. Though rather fond of gay exhibitions, 
 he does not appear so frequently at balls and assemblies since 
 the introduction of the drum, trampet, and tamborine : all of 
 which he abhors on account of the rude attacks they make on 
 his organs of hearing: — in short, such is his antipathy to noise, 
 that though exceedingly patriotic, yet he retreats every fourth 
 of July to Cockloft Hall, in order to get out of the way of the 
 hub-bub and confusion which make so considerable a part of 
 the pleasure of that splendid anniversary. 
 
 I intend this article as a mere sketch of Langstaff's multifa- 
 rious character ; his innumerable whim-whams will be exhibit- 
 ed by himself, in the course of this work, in all their strange 
 varieties ; and the machinery of his mind, more intricate than 
 the most subtle piece of clock-work, be fully explained. And 
 trust me, gentlefolk, his are the whim-whams of a courteous 
 gentleman fvdl of most excellent quahties ; honourable in his 
 disposition, independent in his sentiments, and of unbounded 
 good nature, as may be seen through all his works. 
 
b'ALMAGUNDI. 97 
 
 ON STYLE. 
 
 BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 Style, a manner of writing; title; pin of a dial; the pistil of 
 plants. — Johnson. 
 
 Style, is ... . style. — Linkum Fidelius. 
 
 Now I woiild not give a straw for either of the above defini- 
 tions, though I think the latter is by far the most satisfactory : 
 and I do wish sincerely every modem numskull, who takes 
 hold of a subject he knows nothing about, would adopt honest 
 Linkum's mode of explanation. Blair's Lectures on this article 
 have not thrown a whit more Ught on the subject of my in- 
 quiries ; they puzzled me just as much as did the learned and 
 laborious expositions and illustrations of the "«vorthy professor 
 of our college, in the middle of which I generally had the iU 
 luck to fall asleep. 
 
 This same word style, though but a diminutive word, as- 
 sumes to itself more contradictions, and significations, and 
 eccentricities, than any monosyllable in the language is legiti- 
 mately entitled to. It is an arrant little humorist of a word, 
 and f uU of whim- whams, which occasions me to Uke it hugely ; 
 but it puzzled me most wickedly on my first return from a long 
 residence abroad, having crept into fashionable use during my 
 absence ; and had it not been for friend Evergreen, and that 
 thrifty sprig of knowledge, Jeremy Cockloft the younger, I 
 should have remained to this day ignorant of its meaning. 
 
 Though it would seem that the people of all countries are 
 equally vehement in the pursuit of this phantom, style, yet in 
 almost all of them there is a strange diversity in opinion as to 
 what constitutes its essence; and every different class, like 
 the pagan nations, adore it under a different form. In Eng- 
 land, for instance, an honest cit packs up himself, his family, 
 and his style, in a buggy or tim-whisky, and rattles away on 
 Sunday with his fair partner blooming beside him, like an east- 
 em bride, and two chubby children, squatting like Chinese 
 images at his feet. A Baronet requires a chariot and pair;— a 
 Lord must needs have a barouche and four;— but a Duke— oh ! 
 a Duke cannot possibly lumber his style along under a coach 
 and six, and half a score of footmen into the bargain. In' China 
 
98 SALMAGUNDI 
 
 a puissant ilandarin loads at least three elephants with style; 
 and an overgrown sheep at the Cape of Good-Hope, trails along 
 his tail and his style on a wheelharrow. In Egypt, or at Con- 
 stantinople, style consists in the quantity of fur and fine clothes 
 a lady can put on without danger of suffocation; here it is 
 otherwise, and consists iu the quantity she can put o£E without 
 the risk of freeziag. A Chinase lady is thought prodigal of her 
 charms if she expose the tip of her nose, or the ends of her fin- 
 gers, to the ardent gaze of bystanders : and I recoUect that all 
 Canton was in a buzz in consequence of the great belle. Miss 
 Nangf ous, peeping out of the window with her face uncovered 1 
 Here the style is to show not only the faoe, but the neck, 
 shoulders, &c. ; and a lady never presumes to hide them except 
 when she is not at home, and not sufficiently undressed to see 
 company. 
 
 This style has ruined the peace and harmony of many a 
 worthy household ; for no sooner do they set up for style, but 
 instantly all the honest old comfortable sans ceremonie furni- 
 ture is discarded ; and you stalk, cautio-jisiy about, amongst the 
 uncomfortable splendour of Grecian chairs^ Egyptian tables, 
 Turkey carpets, and Etruscan vases. — This vast improvement 
 in furniture demands an increase in the domestic estabhsh- 
 ment ; and a family that once required two or three servants 
 for convenience, now employs half a dozen for style. 
 
 Bell-brazen, late favourite of my unfortunate friend Des- 
 saltnes, was one of these patterns of style ; and whatever freak 
 she was seized with, however preposterous, was implicitly fol- 
 lowed by all who would be considered as admitted in the styl- 
 ish arcana. She was once seized with a whim-wham that tick- 
 led the whole court. She could not lay down to take an 
 afternoon's loU, but she must have one servant to scratch her 
 head, two to tickle her feet, and a fourth to fan her delectable 
 person while she slumbered. The thing took;— it became the 
 rago, and not a sable belle in all Hayti but what insisted upon 
 being fanned, and scratched, and tickled in the true imperial 
 style. Sneer not at this picture, my most excellent towns- 
 women, for who among you but are daily following fashions 
 equally absurd ! 
 
 Style, according to Evergreen's account, consists in certain 
 fashions, or certain eccentricities, or certain manners of cer- 
 tain people, in certain situations, and possessed of a certain 
 share of fashion or importance. A red cloak, for instance, on 
 the shoulders of an old market-woman is regarded with con- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 99 
 
 tempt; it is vulgar, it is odious: — ^fling, however, its usurping 
 rival, a red shawl, over the fine figure of a fashionable belle, 
 and let her fiame away with it in Broadway, or ia a ball-room, 
 and it is immediately declared to be the style. 
 
 The modes of attaining this certain situation, which entitle 
 its holder to style, are various and opposite ; the most osten- 
 sible is the attainment of wealth; the possession of which 
 changes, at once, the pert airs of vulgar ignorance iato fashion- 
 able ease and elegant vivacity. It is highly amusiug to ob- 
 serve the gradation of a family aspiring to style, and the 
 devious windings they pursue ia order to attain it. While 
 beating up against wind and tide they are the most com-' 
 plaisant beings in the world; — they keep "booiag and booing," 
 as M'Sycophant says, mitO. you would suppose them incapable 
 of standing upright ; they kiss their hands to every body who 
 has the least claim to style; their famOiarity is intolerable, 
 and they absolutely overwhelm you with their friendship and 
 loving-kindness. But having once gained the envied pre- 
 eminence, never were beings in the world more changed. 
 They assume the most intolerable caprices; at one time, ad- 
 dress you with importunate sociabihty ; at another, pass you 
 by with silent indifference ; sometimes sit up in their chairs in 
 all the majesty of dignified silence ; and at another time bounce 
 about with all the obstreperous ill-bred noise of a Mttle hoyden 
 just broke loose from a boarding-school. 
 
 Another feature which distinguishes these new-made fashion- 
 ables, is the inveteracy with which they look down upon the 
 honest people who are struggling to climb up to the same envied 
 height. They never fail to salute them with the most sarcastic 
 reflections; and like so many worthy hodmen, clambering a 
 ladder, each one looks down upon his next neighbour below 
 and makes no scruple of shaking the dust off his shoes into his 
 eyes. Thus by dint of perseverance, merely, they come to be 
 considered as established denizens of the great world; as in 
 some barbarous nations an oyster-sheU is of sterling value, 
 and a copper-washed coimter wiU pass current for genuine 
 gold. 
 
 In no instance have I seen this grasping^ after style more 
 whimsically exhibited, than in the family of my old acquaint- 
 ance, Timothy Giblbt. — I recollect old Giblet when I was a 
 boy, and he was the most surly curmudgeon I ever knew. He 
 was a perfect scare-crow to the small-fry of the day, and in- 
 herited the hatred of all these xmlucky little shavers; for nevei 
 
100 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 coiild we assemble about his door of an evening to play, and 
 make a little hub-bub, but out he sallied from his nest like a 
 spider, flourishing his formidable horse-whip, and dispersed the 
 whole crew iu the twinkling of a lamp. I perfectly remember 
 a bill he sent ia to my father for a pane of glass I had accident- 
 ally broken, which came well-nigh getting me a sound flogging; 
 and I remember, as perfectly, that the next night I revenged 
 myself by breaking half a dozen. Giblet was as arrant a grub- 
 worm as ever crawled ; and the only rules of right and wrong 
 he cared a button for, were the rules of multiplication and 
 addition ; which he practiced much more successfully than he 
 did any of the rules of religion or morality. He used to de- 
 clare they were the true golden rifles ; and he took special care 
 to put Cocker's arithmetic in the hands of his children, before 
 they had read ten pages in the Bible or the prayer-book. The 
 practice of these favourite maxims was at length crowned 
 with the harvest of success ; and after a life of incessant self- 
 denial, and starvation, and after enduring all the pounds, 
 shillings, and pence miseries of a miser, he had the satisfaction 
 of seeing himself worth a plum and of dying just as he had 
 determined to enjoy the remainder of his days in contemplat- 
 ing his great wealth and accumidating mortgages. 
 
 His children inherited his money ; but they buried the dis- 
 position, and every other memorial of their father, in his 
 grave. Fired with, a noble thirst for style, they instantly 
 emerged from the retired lane in which themselves and their 
 accomplishments had hitherto been buried ; and they blazed, 
 and they whizzed, and they cracked about town, like a nest of 
 squibs and devils in a firework. I can liken their sudden eclat 
 to nothing but that of the locust, which is hatched in the dust, 
 where it increases and swells up to maturity, and after feehng 
 for a moment the vivifying rays of the sun, bursts forth a 
 mighty insect, and flutters, and rattles, and buzzes from every 
 tree. The little warblers who have long cheered the wood- 
 lands with their dulcet notes, are stunned by the discordant 
 racket of these upstart intruders, and contemplate, in con- 
 temptuous sflence, their tinsel and their noise. 
 
 Having once started, the Giblets were determined that noth- 
 ing should stop them in their career, until they had run their 
 fuU course and arrived at the very tip-top of style. Every 
 tailor, every shoe-maker, every coach-maker, every milliner, 
 every mantua-maker, every paper-hanger, every piano teacher, 
 and every dancing master in the city, were enlisted in tbeir 
 
SALMAQUNDI. 101 
 
 service; and the willmg wights most courteously answered 
 their call ; and fell to work to bxuld up the fame of the Giblets, 
 as they had done that of many an aspiring family before them. 
 In a little time the young ladies could dance the waltz, 
 thimder Lodoiska, murder French, kill time, and commit vio- 
 lence on the face of nature in a landscape in water colours, 
 equal to the best lady in the land; and the young gentlemen 
 were seen loimging at comers of streets, and driving tandem; 
 heard talking loud at the theatre, and laughing in church; 
 with as much ease, and gracG, and modesty, as if they had 
 been gentlemen aU the days of their Hves. 
 
 And the Giblets arrayed themselves in scarlet, and in fine 
 hnen, and seated themselves in high places ; but nobody noticed 
 them except to honor them with a Mttle contempt. The Gib- 
 lets made a prodigious splash in their own opinion; but no- 
 body extolled them except the tailors, and the milliners, who 
 had been employed in manufacturing their paraphernaHa. The 
 Giblets thereupon being, like Caleb Quotem, determined to 
 have " a place at the review," fell to work more fiercely than 
 ever;— they gave dinners, and they gave balls, they hired 
 cooks, they hired fiddlers, they hired confectioners ; and they 
 would have kept a newspaper in pay, had they not been all 
 bought up at that time for the election. They invited the 
 dancing-men and the dancing-women, and the gormandizers, 
 and the epicures of the city, to come and make merry at their 
 expense; and the dancing-men, and the dancing-women, and 
 the epicures, and the gormandizers, did come; and they did 
 make merry at their expense ; and they eat, and they drank, 
 and they capered, and they danced, and they— laughed at their 
 entertainers. 
 
 Then commenced the hurry and the bustle and the mighty 
 nothingness of fashionable life; — such rattling in coaches! 
 such flaunting in the streets! such slamming of box doors at 
 the theatre! such a tempest of bustle and unmeaning noise 
 wherever they appeared ! the Giblets were seen here and there 
 and everywhere ;— they visited every body they knew, and 
 everybody they did not know; and there was no getting along 
 for the Giblets.— Their plan at length succeeded. By dint of 
 dinners, of feeding and frohcking the town, the Giblet family 
 worked themselves into notice, and enjoyed the ineffable pleas- 
 ure of being for ever pestered by visitors, who cared nothing 
 about them; of being squeezed, and smothered, and parboiled 
 at nightly balls, and evening tea-parties;— they were allowed 
 
102 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 the privilege of forgetting the very few old friends they once 
 possessed; — they turned their noses up in the wind at every 
 thing that was not genteel; and there superb manners and 
 sublime affectation at length left it no longer a matter of doubt 
 that the Griblets were perfectly in style. 
 
 " Being, as it were, a small contentmente in a never contenting subjects; a 
 
 bitter pleasaunte taste of sv/eete seasoned soiver; and, all in all, a more than ordin- 
 arle rejoycing, in an extraordinarie sorrow of delyghts." 
 
 Line. Fidblius. 
 
 We have been considerably edified of late by several letters 
 of advice frora a number of sage correspondents, who really 
 seem to know more about our work than we do ourselves. 
 One warns us against saying any thing more about Snivees, 
 who is a very particular friend of the writer, and who has a 
 singular disinclination to be laughed at. — This correspondent 
 in particular inveighs against personalities, and accuses us of 
 ill nature in briuging forward old Fungus and Billy Dimple, as 
 figures of fun to amuse the pubUc. Another gentleman, who 
 states that he is a near relation of the Cocklofts, proses away 
 most soporifically on the impropriety of ridiculing a respectable 
 old family ; and declares that if we make them and their whim- 
 whams the subject of any more essays, he shall be under the 
 necessity of applying to our theatrical champions for satisfac- 
 tion. A third, who by the crabbedness of the hand-writing, 
 and a few careless inaccuracies in the spelling, appears to be a 
 lady, assures us that the Mss Cocklofts, and Miss Diana Wear- 
 well, and Miss Dashaway, and Mrs. , WUl Wizard's quon- 
 dam flame, are so much obhged to us for our notice, that they 
 intend in future to take no notice of us at all, but leave us out 
 of all their tea-parties ; for which we make them one of our 
 best bows, and say, " thank you, ladies." 
 
 We wish to heaven these good people would attend to their 
 own affairs, if they have any to attend to, and let us alone. It 
 is one of the most provoking things in the world that we can- 
 not tickle the public a little, merely for our own private 
 amusement, but we must be crossed and jostled by these med- 
 dling incendiaries, and, in fact, have the whole town ahout our 
 ears. We are much in the saime situation with an unlucky 
 blade of a cockney ; who, having mounted his bit of blood to 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 103 
 
 enjoy a little innocent recreation, and display his hoi'senian- 
 ship along Broadway, is worried by all those httlo yelping curs 
 that infest our city ; and who never fail to sally out and growl, 
 and bark, and snarl, to the great annoyance of the Birmingham 
 equestrian. 
 
 Wisely was it said by the sage Linkum Fidelius, "howbeit, 
 moreover, nevertheless, this thrice wicked towne is charged up 
 to the muzzle with all manner of Ul-natures and uncharitabte- 
 nesses, and is, moreover, exceedinglie naughte." This passage 
 of the erudite Linkum was applied to the city of Gotham, of 
 which he was once Lord Mayor, as appears by his picture hung 
 up in the haU of' that ancient city ;— but his observation fits 
 this best of all possible cities " to a hair." It is a melancholy 
 truth that this same New- York, although the most charming, 
 •pleasant, polished, and praise- worthy city under the sun, and, 
 in a word, the bonne bouohe of the universe, is most shockingly 
 ill-natured and sarcastic, and wickedly given to all manner of 
 backslidings ; — for which we are very sorry indeed. In truthj 
 for it must come out like murder one time or another, the in- 
 habitants are not only ill-natured, but manifestly unjust : no 
 sooner do they get one of our random sketches in their hands, 
 but instantly they apply it most unjustifiably to some "dear 
 friend," and then accuse us vociferously of the personality 
 which originated in their own ofllcious friendship ! Truly it is 
 an ill-natured town, and most earnestly do we hope it may not 
 meet with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah of old. 
 
 As, however, it may be thought incumbent upon us to make 
 some apology for these mistakes of the town; and as our good- 
 nature is truly exemplary, we would certainly answer this 
 expectation were it not that we have an invincible antipathy 
 to making apologies. We have a most profound contempt for 
 any man who cannot give three good reasons for an unreason- 
 able thing; and will therefore condescend, as usual, to give 
 the public three special reasons for never apologizing:— first, 
 an apology implies that we are accountable to some body or 
 another for our conduct ; — now as we do not care a fiddle-stick, 
 as authors, for either public opinion or private lU-wUI, it would 
 be implying a falsehood to apologize :— second, an apology 
 would iadicate that we had been doing what we ought not to 
 have done. Now, as we never did nor ever intend to do any 
 thing wrong it would be ridiculous to make an apology :— third, 
 we labour under the same incapacity in the art of apologizing 
 that lost Laagstaff his mistress: we never yet undertook to 
 
104 SALMA G UNDI. 
 
 make apology without coramitting a new offence, and raaking 
 matters ten times worse than they were before ; and we are, 
 therefore, determined to avoid such predicaments in. future. 
 
 But though we have resolved never to apologize, yet we have 
 no particular objection to explain; and if this is all that's 
 
 wanted, we will go about it directly : allons, gentleman I 
 
 before, however, we enter upon this serious afiEair, we take 
 this opportunity to express our surprise and indignation at the 
 incredulity of some people. — Have we not, over and over, 
 assured the town that we are three of the best-natured feUows 
 living? And is it not astonishing, that having already given 
 seven convincing proofs of the truth of this assurance, they 
 should still have any doubts on the subject? but as it is one of 
 the impossible things to make a knave believe in honesty, so 
 perhaps it may be another to make this most sarcastic, satiri- 
 cal, and tea-drinking city beheve in the existence of good- 
 nature. But to our explanation. Gentle reader 1 for we are 
 
 convinced that none but gentle or genteel readers can relish 
 our excellent productions, if thou art in expectation of being 
 perfectly satisfied with what we are about to say, thou mayest 
 as well "whistle UUebullero" and skip quite over what follows; 
 for never wight was more disappointed than thou wUt be most 
 assuredly.— But to the explanation: We care just as much 
 about the pubKc and its wise conjectures, as we do about the 
 man in the moon and his whim- whams, or the criticisms of the 
 lady who sits majestically in her elbow-chair in the lobster; 
 and who, belying her sex, as we are credibly informed, never 
 says any thing worth listening to. We have launched our 
 bark, and we will steer to our destined port with undeviatiag 
 perseverance, fearless of being shipwrecked by the way. Good- 
 natiire is our steersman, reason our ballast, whim the breeze 
 that wafts us along, and moeality our leading star. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 105 
 
 NO. IX -SATUEDAY, APRIL 25, 1807. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-OHAIR. 
 
 It in some measure jumps with my humour to be "melan- 
 choly and gentleman-like" this stormy night, and I see no 
 reason why I should not indulge myself for once. — Away, 
 then, with joke, with fun, and laughter, for a while; let my 
 soul look back in mournful retrospect, and sadden with the 
 memory of my good aunt Chaeity — who died of a French- 
 man! 
 
 Stare not, oh, most dubious reader, at the mention of a 
 complaint so imcommon; grievously hath is afllicted the 
 ancient family of the Cocklofts, who carry their absurd 
 antipathy to the French so far, that they will not suffer a 
 clove of garMc in the house : and my good old friend Chris- 
 topher was once on the point of abandoning his paternal 
 country mansion of Coekloft-haJl, merely because a colony 
 of frogs had settled in a neighbouring swamp. I verUy 
 beUeve he would have carried his whim-wham into effect, 
 had not a fortimate drought obliged the enemy to strike 
 their tents, and, like a troop of wandering Arabs, to march 
 oflE towards a moister part of the country. 
 
 My aunt Charity departed this life in the fifty-ninth year of 
 her age, though she never grew older after twenty-five. In 
 her teens she was, according to her own account, a celebrated 
 beauty, — though I jiever could meet with any body that re- 
 membered when she was handsome; on the contrary. Ever- 
 green's father, who used to gallant her in his youth, says she 
 was as knotty a little piece of humanity as he ever saw ; and 
 that, if she had been possessed of the least sensibility, she 
 would, like poor old Acco, have most certauily run mad at her 
 own figure and face the first time she contemplated herself in 
 a looking-glass. In the good old times that saw my aunt in 
 
106 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 the hey-day of youth, a fine lady was a most foi-midahle 
 animal, and required to be approached with the same awo 
 and devotion that a Tartar feels in the presence of his Grand 
 Lama. If a gentleman ofEered to take her hand, except to 
 help her into a carriage, or lead her into a drawing-room, such 
 frowns ! such a rustling of brocade and taffeta 1 her very paste 
 shoe-buckles sparkled with indignation, and for a moment 
 assumed the brilliancy of diamonds : in those days the person 
 of a belle was sacred ; it was unprof aned by the sacrilegious 
 grasp of a stranger: — -siipple souls!— they had not the waltz 
 among them yet ! 
 
 My good aunt prided herself on keeping up this buckram 
 deUcacy; and if she happened to be playing at the old-fash- 
 ioned game of forfeits, and was fined a kiss, it was always 
 more trouble to get it than it was worth ; for she made a most 
 gallant defence, and never surrendered until she saw her 
 adversary inclined to give over his attack. Evergreen's 
 father says he remembers once to have been on a sleighing 
 party with her, and when they came to Eissing-bridge, it fell 
 to his lot to levy contributions on Miss Charity Cockloft ; who, 
 after squalling at e, hideous rate, at length jumped out of the 
 sleigh plump into a snow-bank ; where she stuck fast like an 
 icicle, until he came to her rescue. This latonian feat cost her 
 a rheumatism, from which she never thoroughly recovered. 
 
 It is rather singular that my aunt, though a great beauty, 
 and an heiress withal, never got married. The reason she 
 alleged was, that she never met with a lover who resembled 
 Su- Charles Grandison, the hero of her nightly dreams and 
 waking fancy ; but I am privately of opinion that it was owing 
 to her never having had an offer. This much is certain, that 
 for many years previous to her decease, she declined all 
 attentions from the gentlemen, and contented herself with 
 watching over the welfare of her fellow-creatures. She was, 
 indeed, observed to take a considerable lean towards Method- 
 ism, was frequent in her attendance at love feasts, read 
 Whitefield and Wesley, and even went so far as once to travel 
 the distance of five and twenty miles to be present at a camp- 
 meeting. This gave great offence to my cousin Christopher 
 and his good lady, who, as I have already mentioned, are 
 rigidly orthodox; and had not my aunt Charity been of a 
 most pacific disposition, her religious whim-wham would have 
 occasioned many a family altercation. She was, indeed, as 
 good a soul as the Cockl'rf*- ■^amily ever boasted; a lady of 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 107 
 
 unbounded loving-kindness, which extended to man, woman, 
 and child ; many of whom she almost killed with good-nature. 
 Was any acquaintance sick i in vain did the wind whistle and 
 the storm beat; my aunt would waddle through mud and 
 mire, over the whole town, but what she would visit them. 
 She woidd sit by them for hours together with the most per- 
 severing patience ; and teU a thousand melancholy stories of 
 human misery, to keep up their spirits. The whole catalogue 
 of yerh teas was at her fingers' ends, from formidable worm- 
 wood down to gentle balm; and she would descant by the 
 hour on the healing qualities of hoar-hound, catnip, and 
 penny-royal. — Wo be to the patient that came under the 
 benevolent hand of my aunt Charity; he was sure, wUly 
 niUy, to be drenched with a deluge of decoctions; and full 
 many a time has my cousin Christopher borne a twinge of 
 pain in silence through fear of being condemned to suffer the 
 martyrdom of her materia-medica. My good aunt had, more- 
 over, considerable skill in astronomy, for she could tell when 
 the sun rose and set every day in the year ; and no woman in 
 the whole world was able to pronounce, with more certainty, 
 at what precise minute the moon changed. She held the story 
 of the moon's being made of green cheese, as an abominable 
 slander on her favourite planet; and she had made several 
 valuable discoveries in solar eclipses, by means of a bit of 
 burnt glass, which entitled her at least to an honorary admis- 
 sion in the American-philosophical-society. Hutchings im- 
 proved was her favourite book ; and I shrewdly suspect that it 
 was from this valuable work she drew most of her sovereign 
 remedies for colds, coughs, corns, and consumptions. 
 
 But the truth must be told ; with all her good qualities my 
 aunt Charity was aflflicted with one fault, extremely rare 
 among her gentle sex; — it was curiosity. How she came by 
 it, I am at a loss to imagine, but it played the very vengeance 
 with her and destroyed the comfort of her life. Having an in- 
 vincible desire to know every body's character, business, and 
 mode of living, she was for ever prying into the affairs of her 
 neighbours ; and got a great deal of ill will from people towards 
 whom she had the kindest disposition possible. — If any family 
 on the opposite side of the street gave a dinner; my aunt 
 would mount her spectacles, and sit at the window until the 
 company were all housed ; merely that she might know who 
 they were. If she heard a story about any of her acquain- 
 tance, she would, forthwith, set off full sail and never rest 
 
108 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 until, to use her usual expression, she had got "to the hottom 
 of it ;" which meant nothing more than telling it to every body- 
 she knew. 
 
 I remember one night my aunt Charity happened to hear a 
 a most precious story about one of her good friends, but un- 
 fortunately too late to give it immediate circulation. It made 
 her absolutely miserable; and she hardly slept a wink aU 
 night, for fear her bosom friend, Mrs. Sipkins, should get the 
 start of her in the morning and blow the whole affair. You 
 must know there was always a contest between these two 
 ladies, who should first give currency to the good-natured 
 things said about every body ; and this unfortunate rivalship 
 at length proved fatal to their long and ardent friendship. My 
 aunt got up tuU two hours that morning before her usual time; 
 put on her pompadour taf eta gown, and saUied forth to lament 
 the miefortune of her dear friend. Would you beheve it!— 
 wherever she went Mrs. Sipkins had anticipated her; and, 
 instead of being listened to with upHfted hands and open- 
 mouthed wonder, my unhappy aunt was obliged to sit down 
 quietly and Usten to the whole affair, with numerous addi- 
 tions, alterations, and amendments! — now this was too bad; 
 it would almost have provoked Patience Grizzle or a saint ; — ^it 
 was too much for my aunt, who kept her bed for three days 
 afterwards, with a cold, as she pretended ; but I have no doubt 
 it was owing to this affair of Mrs. Sipkins, to whom she never 
 would be reconciled. 
 
 But I pass over the rest of my aunt Charity's life, checquered 
 with the various calamities and misfortunes and mortifications 
 incident to those worthy old gentlewomen who have the do- 
 mestic cares of the whole community upon their minds ; and 
 I hasten to relate the melancholy incident that hurried her out 
 of existence in the full bloom of antiquated virginity. 
 
 In their froUcksome malice the fates had ordered that a 
 French boarding-house, or Pension Franoaise, as it was called, 
 should be estabhshed directly opposite my aunt's residence. 
 Cruel event ! unhappy aunt Charity ! — ^it threw her into that 
 alarming disorder denominated the fidgets; she did nothing 
 but watch at the window day after day, but without becoming 
 one whit the wiser at the end of a fortnight than she was at 
 the beginning ; she thought that neighbour Pension had a mon- 
 strous large family, and somehow or other they were all men I 
 she could not imagine what business neighbour Pension fol- 
 lowed to support so numerous a household; and wondered 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 109 
 
 why there was always such a scraping of fiddles in the par- 
 lour, and such a smell of onions from neighbour Pension's 
 kitchen; in short, neighbour Pension was continually upper- 
 most in her thoughts, and incessantly on the outer edge of her 
 tongue. This was, I believe, the very first time she had ever 
 failed "to get at the bottom of a thing;" and the disappoint- 
 ment cost her many a sleepless night I warrant you. I have 
 httle doubt, however, that my aunt would have ferretted 
 neighbour Pension out, could she have spoken or understood 
 French ; but in those times people in general could make them- 
 selves understood in plain English; and it was always a stand- 
 ing rule in the Cockloft family, which exists to this day, that 
 not one of the females should learn French. 
 
 My aunt Charity had Mved, at her window, for some time 
 in vain; when one day, as she was keeping her usual look-c»at, 
 and sufferiag all the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity, she beheld 
 a little, meagre, weazel-faced Frenchman, of the most forlorn, 
 diminutive, and pitiful proportions, arrive at neighbour Pen- 
 sion's door. He was dressed in white, with a httle pinched-up 
 cocked hat ; he seemed to shake in the wind, and every blast 
 that went over him whistled through his bones and threatened 
 instant annihilation. This embodied spirit-of-famine was fol- 
 lowed by three carts, lumbered with crazy trunks, chests, 
 band-boxes, bidets, medicine -chests, parrots, and monkeys; 
 and at his heels ran a yelping pack of httle black-nosed pug 
 dogs. This was the one thing wanting to fill up the measure 
 of my aunt Charity's aflBictions ; she coxild not conceive, for 
 the soul of her, who this mysterious little apparition could be 
 that made so great a display ; what he could possibly do with 
 so much baggage, and particularly with his parrots and mon- 
 keys; or how so small a carcass could have occasion for so 
 many trunks of clothes. Honest soul ! she had never had a 
 peep into a Frenchman's wardrobe ; that depdt of old coats, 
 hats, and breeches, of the growth of every fashion he has fol- 
 lowed in his life. 
 
 From the time of this fatal arrival, my poor aunt was in a 
 quandary ;— all her inquiries were fruitless ; no one could ex- 
 pound the history of this mysterious stranger: she never held 
 up her head aftei-wards, — drooped daily, took to her bed in a 
 fortnight, and in "one little month" I saw her quietly depos- 
 ited in the family vault:— being the seventh Cockloft that has 
 died of a whim-wham! 
 
 Take warning, my fair country-women ! and you, oh, ye ex- 
 
110 SALMAOUNDT. 
 
 cellent ladies, whether married or single, who pry into other 
 people's affairs and neglect those of your own household;— 
 who are so busUy employed in observing the faults of others 
 that you have no time to correct your own;— remember the 
 fate of my dear aunt Charity, and eschew the evil spirit of 
 curiosity. 
 
 FROM MT ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 I FIND, by perusal of our last nmnber, that Will Wizard 
 and Evergreen, taking advantage of my confinement, have 
 been playing some of their gambols. I suspected these rogues 
 of some mal-practices, in consequence of their queer looks and 
 knowing winks whenever I came down to dinner; and of their 
 not showing their faces at old Cockloft's for several days after 
 the appearance of their precious effusions. Whenever these 
 two waggish fellows lay their heads together, there is always 
 sure to be hatched some notable piece of mischief ; which, if it 
 tickles nobody else, is sure to make its authors merry. The 
 pubUc will take notice that, for the purpose of teaching these 
 my associates better manners, and punishing them for their 
 high misdemeanors, I have, by virtue of my authority, sus- 
 pended them from all interference in Salmagundi, until they 
 show a proper degree of repentance ; or I get tired of support- 
 ing the burthen of the work myself. I am sorry for Will, who 
 is already sufficiently mortified in not daring to come to- the 
 old house and teU his long stories and smoke his segar; but 
 Evergreen, being an old beau, may solace himself in his dis- 
 grace by trimming up all his old fiiiery and making love to 
 the little girls. 
 
 At present my right-hand man is cousin Pindar, whom I 
 have taken into high favour. He came home the other night 
 all in a blaze hke a sky-rocket — whisked up to his room in a 
 paroxysm of poetic inspiration, nor did we see any thing of 
 him until late the next morning, when he bounced upon us at 
 breakfast, 
 
 " Fire in each eye— and paper in each hand." 
 
 This is just the way with Pindar, he is like a volcano ; wiU 
 remain for a long tipie silent without emitting a single spark, 
 and then, all at once, burst out in a tremendous explosion of 
 rhyme and rhapcody. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. Ill 
 
 As the letters of my friend Mustapha seem to excite consid" 
 erable curiosity, I have subjoined another. I do not vouch 
 for the justice of his remarks, or the correctness of his con- 
 clusions; they are full of the blunders and errors in which 
 strangers continually indulge, who pretend to give an account 
 of tliis coim.try before they weU know the geography of the 
 street in which they Hve. The copies of my friend's papers 
 being confused and without date, I cannot pretend to give 
 them in systematic order ; — in fact, they seem now and then 
 to treat of matters which have occurred since his departure ; 
 whether those are sly interpolations of that meddlesome wight 
 WiU "Wizard, or whether honest Mustapha was gifted with 
 the spirit of prophecy or second sight, I neither know — nor, in 
 fact, do I care. The following seems to have been written 
 when the TripoUtan prisoners were so much annoyed by the 
 ragged state of their wardrobe. Mustapha feelingly depicts 
 the embarrassments of his situation, traveller-Uke ; makes an 
 easy transition from his breeches to the seat of government, 
 and incontinently abuses the whole administration; Uke a 
 sapient traveller I once knew, who damned the French nation 
 in toto — because they eat sugar with green peas. 
 
 LETTEE FEOM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN. 
 
 CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PKINCIPAL SLAVE- 
 DEIVEE TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OP TRIPOLI. 
 
 Sweet, oh, Asem ! is the memory of distant friends ! Kke the 
 mellow ray of a departing sun it falls tenderly yet sadly on the 
 heart. Every hour of absence from my native land rolls 
 hoavUy by, Uke the sandy wave of the desert ; and the fair 
 shores of my country rise blooming to my imagination, clothed 
 in the soft, illusive charms of distance. I sigh, yet no one lis- 
 tens to the sigh of the captive ; I shed the bitter tear of recol- 
 lection, but no one sympathizes in the tear of the turbaned 
 stranger 1 Think not, however, thou brother of my soul, that 
 I complain of the horrors of my situation ;— think not that my 
 captivity is attended with the labours, the chains, the scourges, 
 the insults, tha* render slavery, with us, more dreadful than 
 the pangs of hesitating, lingering death. Light, indeed, are 
 
112 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 the restraints on the personal freedom of thy kinsman ; but 
 ■who can enter into the afflictions of the mind? — who can de- 
 scribe the agonies of the heart? they are mutable as the clouds 
 of the air— they are countless as the waves that divide me 
 from my native country. 
 
 I have, of late, my dear Asem, laboured under an inconve- 
 nience singularly unfortunate, and am reduced to a dilemma 
 most ridiculously embarrassing. Why should I hide it from 
 the companion of my thoughts, the partner of my sorrows and 
 ■pay joys? Alas! Asem, thy friend Mustapha, the invincible 
 captain of a ketch, is sadly in want of a pair of breeches ! Thou 
 wilt doubtless smile, oh, most grave Mussulman, to hear me 
 indulge in such ardent lamentations about a circumstance so 
 trivial, and a want apparently so easy to be satisfied ; but little 
 canst thou know of the mortifications attending my necessities, 
 and the astonishing difficulty of supplying them. Honoured 
 by the smiles and attentions of the beautiful ladies of this city, 
 who have fallen in love with my whiskers and my turban; 
 courted by the bashaws and the great men, who delight to 
 have mo at their feasts ; the honour of my company eagerly 
 soUcited by every fiddler who gives a concert; think of my 
 chagrin at being obliged to decMne the host of invitations that 
 daily overwhelm me, merely for want of a pair of breeches ! 
 Oh, Allah! Allah! that thy disciples could come into the world 
 aU be-f eathered like a bantam, or with a pair of leather breeches 
 like the wild deer of the forest ! Surely, my friend, it is the 
 destiny of man to be for ever subjected to petty evils ; which, 
 however trifling in appearance, prey in silence on his Mttle 
 pittance of enjoyment, and poison those moments of simshine 
 which might otherwise be consecrated to happiness. 
 
 The want of a garment, thou wilt say, is easily supplied ; and 
 thou mayest suppose need only be mentioned, to be remedied 
 at once by any tailor of the land: little canst thou conceive the 
 impediments which stand in the way of my comfort ; and still 
 less art thou acquainted with the prodigious great scale on 
 which every thing is transacted in this country. The nation 
 moves most majestically slow and clumsy in the most trivial 
 affairs, like the imwleldy elephant which makes a formidable 
 difficulty of picking up a straw 1 When I hinted my necessities 
 to the officer who has charge of myself and my companions, I 
 expected to have them forthwith relieved; but he made an 
 amazing long face, told me that we were prisoners of state, 
 that we must, therefore, be clothed at the expense of govern- 
 
SALMA Q UNDI. 113 
 
 ment; that as no provision had been made by congress for an 
 emergency of the kind, it was impossible to furnish me with a 
 pair of breeches, until all the sages of the nation had been con- 
 vened to talk over the matter and debate upon the expediency 
 of granting my request. Sword of the immortal Khalid, 
 thought I, but this is great ! — this is truly sublime I All the 
 sages of an immense logocracy assembled together to talk 
 about my breeches! Vain mortal that I am! — I cannot but 
 own I was somewhat reconciled to the delay, which must nec- 
 essarily attend this method of clothing me, by the considera- 
 tion that if they made the affair a national act, my "name 
 must, of course, be embodied in history," and myself and my 
 breeches flourish to immortality in the annals of this mighty 
 empire ! 
 
 "But, pray," said I, "how does it happen that a matter so 
 insignificant should be erected into an object of such impor- 
 tance as to employ the representative wisdom of the nation ; 
 and what is the cause of their taUcing so much about a trifle?" 
 — "Oh,"rephed the officer, who acts as our slave-driver, "it 
 all proceeds from economy. K the government did not spend 
 ten times as much money in debating whether it was proper to 
 supply you with breeches, as the breeches themselves woiild 
 cost, the people who govern the bashaw and his divan would 
 straightway begin to complaia of their liberties being infringed ; 
 the national finances squandered ! not a hostile slang- whanger 
 throughout the logocracy, but would biu-st forth like a barrel 
 of combustion, and ten chances to one but the bashaw and the 
 sages of his divan would aU be turned out of office together. 
 My good Mussulman," continued he, "the administration have 
 the good of the people too much at heart to trifle with their 
 pockets; and they would sooner assemble and talk away ten 
 thousand dollars, than expend fifty silently out of the treasury ; 
 such is the wonderful spirit of economy that pervades every 
 branch of this government." "But," said I, "how is it possi- 
 ble they can spend money in talking ; surely words cannot be 
 the current coin of this country?" "Truly," cried he, smiling, 
 "your question is pertinent enough, for words indeed often 
 supply the place of cash among us, and many an honest debt 
 is paid in.promises: but the fact is, the grand bashaw and the 
 members of congress, or grand-talkers-of-the-nation, either 
 receive a yearly salary or are paid by the day." " By the nine 
 hundred tongues of the great beast in Mahomet's vision, but 
 tho murder is out; — ^it is no wonder these honest men talk so 
 
114 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 much about nothing, when they are paid for talking, like day- 
 labourers." " You are mistaken, " said my driver, "it is noth- 
 ing but economy !" 
 
 I remained silent for some minutes, for this inexpHcable 
 word economy always discomfits me ; and when I flattei- my- 
 self I have grasped it, it slips through my fingers like a jack- 
 o'-lantern. I have not, nor perhaps ever shall acquire, suffi- 
 cient of the philosophic pohcy of this government to draw a 
 proper distinction between an individual and a nation. If a 
 man was to throw away a pound in order to save a beggarly 
 penny, and boast, at the same time, of his economy, I should 
 think him on a par with the fool in the fable of Alfanji, who, 
 in skinning a flint worth a farthing, spoiled a knife worth fifty 
 times the sum, and thought he had acted wisely. The shrewd 
 fellow would doubtless have valued himself much more highly 
 on his economy, could he have known that his example would 
 one day be followed by the bashaw of America, and the sages 
 of his divan. 
 
 This economic disposition, my friend, occasions much fight- 
 ing of the spirit, and innumerable contests of the tongue in 
 this talking assembly. — Wouldst thou beheve it? they were 
 actually employed for a whole week in a most strenuous and 
 eloquent debate about patching up a hole in the wall of the 
 room^ appropriated to their meetings! A vast profusion of 
 nervous argument and pompous declamation was expended on 
 the occasion. Some of the orators, I am told, being rather wag- 
 gishly inclined, were most stupidly jocular on the occasion ; but 
 their waggery gave great offence ; and was highly reprobated 
 by the more weighty part of the assembly, who hold aU wit 
 and humour in abomination, and thought the business in hand 
 much too solemn and serious to be treated hghtly. It is sup- 
 posed by some that this affair would have occupied a whole 
 winter, as it was a subject upon ..hich several gentlemen 
 spoke who had never been known to open their lips in that 
 place except to say yes and no. These silent members are by 
 way of distinction denominated orator mums, and are highly 
 valued in this country on account of their great talent for 
 silence;— a qualification extremely rare in a logocracy. 
 
 Fortunately for the public tranquillity, in the hottest part of 
 the debate, when two rampant Virginians, brim-full of logic 
 and philosophy, were measuring tongues, and syllogisticaEy 
 cudgelling each other out of their unreasonable notions, the 
 president of the divan, a knowing old gentleman, one night 
 
SALMA O UJVDI. 115 
 
 slyly sent a mason with a hod of mortar, who, in the course of 
 a few minutes, closed up the hole and put a final end to the ar- 
 gument. Thus did thiswise old gentleman, hy hitting on a 
 most' simple expedient, in all prohabihty save his country as 
 much money as would build a gun-boat, or pay a hireling 
 slang- whanger for a whole volume of words. As it happened, 
 only a few thousand dollars wore expended in paying these 
 men, who are denominated, I suppose in derision, legislators. 
 
 Another instance of their economy I relate with pleasure, for 
 I really begin to feel a regard for these poor barbarians. They 
 talked away the best part of a whole winter before they 
 could determine not to expend a few dollars in purchasing a 
 sword to bestow on an illustrious warrior : yes, Asem, on that 
 very hero who frightened all our poor old women and young 
 children at Derne, and fuUy proved himself a greater man 
 than the mother that bore him. Thus, my friend, is the whole 
 collective wisdom of this mighty logocracy employed in somni- 
 ferous debates about the most trivial affairs ; like I have some- 
 times seen a herculean mountebank exerting all his energies ia 
 balancing a straw upon his nose. Their sages behold the minu- 
 test object with the microscopic eyes of a pismire ; mole-hills 
 swell into mountains, and a grain of mustard-seed wUl set the 
 whole ant-hiU in a hub-bub. Whether this indicates a capa- 
 cious vision, or a diminutive mind, I leave thee to decide; for 
 my part, I consider -it as another proof of the great scale on 
 which every thing is transacted in this country. 
 
 I have before told thee that nothing can be done without con- 
 sulting the sages of the nation, who compose the assembly 
 called the congress. This prolific body may not improperly be 
 termed the "mother of inventions;" and a most fruitful 
 mother it is, let me tell thee, though its children are generally 
 abortions. It has lately laboured with what was deemed the 
 conception of a mighty navy.— All the old women and the 
 good wives that assist the bashaw in his emergencies hurried 
 to .head-quarters to be busy, hke midwives, at the deUvery. — 
 All was anxiety, fidgeting, and consultation ; when, after a deal 
 of groaning and struggling, instead of formidable first rates 
 and gallant frigates, out crept a litter of sorry little gim- 
 boats! These are most pitiful little vessels, partaking vastly 
 of the character of the grand bashaw, who has the credit of 
 begetting them ; being flat, shallow vessels that can only sail 
 before the wind:— must always keep in with the land;— aro 
 continually foimdering or running ashore; and, in short, are 
 
116 SAZJfAOUNDI. 
 
 only fit for smooth water. Though iilt'ended for the defence 
 of the maritime cities, yet the cities are obUged to defend 
 them; and they require as much nursing as so many rickctty 
 little bantlings. They are, however, the darhng pets of the 
 grand bashaw, being the children of his dotage, and, perhaps 
 from their diminutive size and palpable weakness, are called 
 the "infant navy of America." The act that brought them 
 into existence was almost deified by the majority of the peo- 
 ple as a grand stroke of economy. — By the beard of Mahomet, 
 but this word is truly inexplicable ! 
 
 To this economic body, therefore, was I advised to address 
 my petition, and humbly to pray that the august assembly 
 of sages would, in the plenitude of their wisdom and the mag- 
 nitude of their powers, munificently bestow on an unfortu- 
 nate captive, a pair of cotton breeches ! "Head of the immor- 
 tal Amrou," cried I, "but this would be presumptuous to a de- 
 gree ; what ! after these worthies have thought proper to leave 
 their country naked and defenceless, and exposed to all the po- 
 htical storms that rattle without, can I expect that they will 
 lend a helping hand to comfort the extremities of a solitary 
 captive?" My exclamation was only answered by a smile, and 
 I was consoled by the assurance that, so far from being neg- 
 lected, it was every way probable my breeches might occupy 
 a whole session of the divan, and set several of the longest 
 heads together by the ears. Flattering -as was the idea of a 
 whole nation being agitated about my breeches, yet I own I 
 was somewhat dismayed at the idea of remaining in querpo, 
 untU all the national gray -beards should have made a speech 
 on the occasion, and given their consent to the measure. The 
 embarrassment and distress of mind which I experienced was 
 visible in my countenance, and my guard, who is a man of in- 
 finite good-nature, immediately suggested, as a more expedi- 
 tious plan of supplying my wants — a benefit at the theatre. 
 Though profoundly ignorant of his meaning, I agreed to his 
 proposition, the result of which I shall disclose to thee in 
 another letter. 
 
 Fare thee well, dear Asem; in thy pious prayers to our 
 great prophet, never forget to solicit thy friend's return ; and 
 when thou numberest up the many blessings bestowed on thee 
 by all-bountiful Allah, pour forth thy gratitude that he has 
 cast thy nativity in a land where there is no assembly of 
 legislative chatterers : — no great bashaw, who bestrides a gun- 
 boat for a hobby-horse: — where the word economy is un- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 117 
 
 known; — and where an unfortunate captive is not obliged to 
 call upon the whole nation, to cut him out a pair of breeches. 
 
 Ever thine, 
 
 MUSTAPHA. 
 
 FEOM THE MILL OF PINDAE COCKLOFT, ESQ. 
 
 Though enter'd on that sober age, 
 When men withdraw fi-om fashion's stage. 
 And leave the follies of the day, 
 To shape their course a graver way ; 
 Stm those gay scenes I loiter round. 
 In which my youth sweet transport found: 
 And though I feel their joys decay. 
 And languish every hour away,^ 
 Yet hke an exile doom'd to part. 
 From the dear country of his heart. 
 From the fair spot in which he sprung. 
 Where his first notes of love were sung, 
 Will often turn to wave the hand. 
 And sigh his blessings on the land; 
 Just so my lingering watch I keep, 
 Thus oft I take my farewell peep. 
 
 And, like that pilgrim who retreats^ 
 Thus lagging from his parent seats. 
 When the sad thought pervades his mind, 
 That the fair land he leaves behind 
 Is ravaged by a foreign foe. 
 Its cities waste, its temples low. 
 And ruined all those haunts of joy 
 That gave him rapture when a boy; 
 Turns from it with averted eye, 
 And while he heaves the anguish'd sigh, 
 Scarce feels regret that the loved shore 
 Shall beam upon his sight no more ;— 
 Just so it grieves ipy soul to view, 
 While breathing forth a fond adieu. 
 The innovations pride has made, 
 The fustian, frippery, and parade, 
 That now nsui-p with mawkish grace 
 Pure tranquil pleasure's wonted place ! 
 
118 SALMAGUFDI. 
 
 'Twas joy we look'd for in my prime, 
 That idol of the olden time ; 
 When all our pastimes had the art 
 To please, and not mislead, the heart. 
 Style curs'd us not,— that modem flash, 
 That love of racket and of trash ; 
 Which scares at once all feeling joys, 
 And drowns deUght in empty noise ; 
 Which barters friendship, mirth, and truth, 
 The artless air, the bloom of youth, 
 And all those gentle sweets that swarm 
 Round nature in her simplest form, 
 For cold display, for hollow state, 
 The trappings of the would-be great. 
 
 Oh ! once again those days recall. 
 When heart met heart in fashion's hall ; 
 When every honest guest would flock 
 To add his pleasure to the stock, 
 More fond his transports to express, 
 Than show the tinsel of his dress ! 
 These were the times that clasp'd the sou] 
 In gentle friendship's soft control. 
 Our fair ones, unprofan'd by art. 
 Content to gain one honest heart, 
 No train of sighing swains desired. 
 Sought to be loved and not admired. 
 But now 'tis form, not love, unites ; 
 'Tis show, not pleasure, that invites. 
 Each seeks the ball to play the queen, 
 To flirt, to conquer, to be seen; 
 Each grasps at universal sway, 
 And reigns the idol of the day; 
 Exults amid a thousand sighs. 
 And triumphs when a lover dies. 
 Each beUe a rival belle surveys, 
 like deadly foe with hostile gaze ; 
 Nor can her " dearest friend" caress. 
 Till she has slyly scann'd her dress; 
 Ten conquests in one year will make, 
 And six eternal friendships break ! 
 
 How oft I breathe the inward sigh. 
 And feel the dew-drop in my eye, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 119 
 
 When I behold some beauteous frame, 
 Divine in every thing but name. 
 Just venturing, in the tender age. 
 On fashion's late new-fangled stage ! 
 Where soon the guUtless heart shall cease 
 To beat in artlessness and peace ; 
 Where aJl the flowers of gay delight 
 With which youth decks its prospects bright. 
 Shall wither 'mid the cares, the strife, 
 The cold realities of life ! 
 
 Thus lately, in my careless mood, 
 As I the world of fashion view'd 
 While celebrating great and small 
 That grand solemnity, a ball. 
 My roving vision chanced to light 
 On two sweet forms, divinely bright ; 
 Two sister nymphs, alike in face, 
 In mien, in lovehness, and grace ; 
 Twin rose-buds, bursting into bloom. 
 In all their briUiance and perfum.e : 
 Like those fair forms that often beam 
 Upon the Eastern poet's dream ! 
 For Eden had each lovely maid 
 In native innocence arrayed, — 
 And heaven itself had almost shed 
 Its sacred halo round each head ! 
 
 They seem'd, just entering hand in hand. 
 To cautious tread this fairy land; 
 To take a timid, hasty view. 
 Enchanted with a scene so new. 
 The modest blush, imtaught by art, 
 Bespoke their purity of heart ; 
 And every timorous act unfurl'd 
 Two souls unspotted by the world. 
 
 Oh, how these strangers joy'd my sight. 
 And thrUl'd my bosom with deMght ! 
 They brought the visions of my youth 
 Back to my soul in all their truth; 
 Eecall'd fair spirits into day. 
 That time's rough hand had swept away ! 
 Thus the bright natives from above, 
 Who come on messages of love. 
 
120 SALMAQUMDI. 
 
 Will bless, at rare and distant whiles, 
 Our sinful dwelling by their smiles ! 
 
 Oh ! ray romance of youth is past. 
 Dear airy dreams too bright to last ! 
 Yet when such forms as these appear, 
 I feel your soft remembrance here ; 
 For, ail ! the simple poet's heart. 
 On which fond love once play'd its part, 
 StiU feels the soft pulsations beat, 
 As loth to quit their former seat. 
 Just like the harp's melodious wire. 
 Swept by a bard with heavenly fire. 
 Though ceased the loudly swelling strain 
 Yet sweet vibrations long remain. 
 
 Full soon I found the lovely pair 
 Had sprung beneath a mother's care. 
 Hard by a neighbouring streamlet's side. 
 At once its ornament and pride. 
 The beauteous parent's tender heart 
 Had well f ulflll'd its pious part ; 
 And, like the holy man of old, 
 As we're by sacred writings told. 
 Who, when he from his pupU sped, 
 Pour'd two-fold blessings on his head.- 
 So this fond mother had imprest 
 Her early virtues in each breast. 
 And as she found her stock enlarge. 
 Had stampt new graces on her charge. 
 
 The fair resign'd the calm retreat. 
 Where first their souls in concert beat, 
 And flew on expectation's wing, 
 To sip the joys of Mfe's gay spring; 
 To sport in fashion's splendid maze. 
 Where friendship fades and love decays. 
 So two sweet wild flowers, near the side 
 Of some fair river's silver tide. 
 Pure as the gentle stream that laves 
 The green banks with its lucid waves, 
 Bloom beauteous in their native ground 
 Diffusing heavenly fragrance round; 
 But should a venturous hand transfer 
 These blossoms to the gay parterre. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 121 
 
 Where, spite of artificial aid, 
 The fairest plants of nature fade, 
 Though they may shine supreme awhile 
 'Mid pale ones of the stranger soU, 
 The tender beauties soon decay, 
 And their sweet fragrance dies away. 
 Blest spirits 1 who, enthroned in air. 
 Watch o'er the virtues of the fair. 
 And with angelic ken survey 
 Their windings through Ufe's chequer'd way; 
 Who hover round them as they ghde 
 Down fashion's smooth, deceitful tide. 
 And guard them o'er that stormy deep 
 Where dissipation's tempests sweep: 
 Oh, make this inexperienced pair 
 The objects of your tenderest care. 
 Preserve them from the languid eye, 
 The faded cheek, the long-drawn sigh; 
 And let it be your constant aim 
 To keep the fair ones stiU the same: 
 Two sister hearts, imsullied, bright 
 As the first beam of lucid light 
 That sparkled from the youthful sun. 
 When first his jocund race begun. 
 So when these hearts shall burst their shrine, 
 To wing their flight to realms divine. 
 They may to radiant mansions rise 
 Pure as when first they left the skies. 
 
122 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 NO. X.-SATURDAY, MAY 16, 180T. 
 
 FEOM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 The long interval which has elapsed since the pubHcation of 
 our last number, Hke many other remarkable events, has 
 given rise to much conjecture and excited considerable sohci- 
 tude. It is but a day or two since I heard a knowing young 
 gentleman observe, that he suspected Salmagundi would be a 
 nine days' wonder, and had even prophesied that the ninth 
 would be our last effort. But the age of prophecy, as well as 
 that of chivalry, is past ; and no reasonable man should now 
 venture to foretell aught but what he isfdetermined to bring 
 about himself: — he may then, if he please, monopolize predic- 
 tion, and be honoured as a prophet even in his own country. 
 
 Though I hold whether we write, or not write, to be none of 
 the public's business, yet as I have just heard of the loss of 
 three thousand votes at least to the GUntonians, I feel in a 
 remarkably dulcet hiunour thereupon, and will give some 
 account of the reasons which induced us to resume our useful 
 labours : — or rather our amusement ; for, if writing cost either 
 of us a moment's labour, there is not a man but what would 
 hang up his pen, to the great detriment of the world at large, 
 and of our publisher in particular ; who has actually bought 
 himself a pair of trunk breeches, with the profits of our 
 writings ! ! 
 
 He informs me that several persons having called last 
 Saturday for No. X., took the disappointment so much to 
 heart, that he really apprehended some terrible catastrophe; 
 and one good-looking man, in particular, declared his inten- 
 tion of quitting the country if the work was not continued. 
 Add to this, the town has grown quite melancholy in the last 
 fortnight; and several young ladies have declared, in my 
 hearing, that if another number did not make its appearance 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 123 
 
 soon, they -would be obliged to amuse themselves with teasing 
 their beaux and making them miserable. Now I assure my 
 readers there was no flattery in this, for they no more sus- 
 pected me of being Launcelot LangstafE, than they suspected me 
 of being the emperor of China, or the man in the moon. 
 
 I have also received several letters complaining of our indo- 
 lent procrastination; and one of my correspondents- assures 
 me, that a number of yoimg gentlemen, who had not read a 
 book through since they left school, but who have taien a 
 wonderful liking to our paper, will certainly relapse into their 
 old habits unless we go on. 
 
 For the sake, therefore, of aU these good people, and most 
 especially for the satisfaction of the ladies, every one of whom 
 we woidd love, if we possibly could, I have again wielded my 
 pen with a most hearty determination to set the whole world 
 to rights ; to make cherubims and seraphs of all the fair ones 
 of this enchanting town, and raise the spirits of the poor 
 federalists, who, in truth, seem to be in a sad taking, ever 
 since the American-Ticket met with the accident of being so 
 imhappily thrown out. 
 
 TO LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 
 
 Sir: — I felt myself hurt and offended by Mr. Evergreen's 
 terrible philippic against modem music, in No. II. of your 
 work, and was under serious apprehension that his strictures 
 might bring the art, which I have the honour to profess, into 
 contempt. The opinion of yourself and fraternity appears 
 indeed to have a wonderful effect upon the town. — I am told 
 the ladies are all employed in reading Bunyan and Pamela, 
 and the waltz has been entirely forsaken ever since the winter 
 balls have closed. Under these apprehensions I should have 
 addressed you before, had I not been sedulously employed, 
 while the theatre continued open, in supporting the astonish- 
 ing variety of the orchestra, and in composing a new chime or 
 Bob-Major for Trinity Church, to be rung during the summer, 
 beginning with ding-dong di-do, instead of di-do ding-dong. 
 The citizens, especially those who live in the neighbourhood of 
 
 'Ihat harmonious quarter, will, no doubt, be infinitely de- 
 
 '. '. lighted with this novelty. 
 
324 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 But to the object of this communication. So far, sir, from 
 agreeing with Mr. Evergreen in thinking that all modem 
 music is but the mere dregs and drainings of the ancient, I 
 trust, before this letter is concluded, I shall convince you and 
 him that some of the late professors of this enchanting art 
 have completely distanced the paltry efforts of the ancients; 
 and that I, in particular, have at length brought it almost to 
 absolute perfection. 
 
 The Greeks, simple souls ! were astonished at the powers of 
 Orpheus, who made the woods and rocks dance to his lyre; 
 — of Amphion, who converted crotchets into bricks, and qua» 
 Vers into mortar ; — and of Arion, who won upon the compas< 
 sion of the fishes. In the fervency of admiration, their poets 
 fabled that Apollo had lent them his lyre, and inspired them 
 with his own spirit of harmony. What then would they have 
 said had they witnessed the wonderful effects of my skiU ? had 
 they heard me in the compass of a single piece, describe in 
 glowing notes one of the most subHme operations of nature; 
 and not only make inanimate objects dance, but even speak; 
 and not only speak, but speak in strains of exquisite harmony ? 
 
 Let me not, however, be understood to say that I am the sole 
 author of this extraordinary improvement in the art, for I 
 confess I took the hint of many of my discoveries from some 
 of those meritorious productions that have lately come abroad 
 and made so much noise under the title of overtures. From 
 some of these, as, for instance, Lodoiska, and the battle of 
 Marengo, a gentleman, or a captain in the city militia, or an 
 amazonian young lady, may indeed acquire a tolerable idea of 
 military tactics, and become very well experienced in the firing 
 of musketry, the roaring of cannon, the rattUng of drums, the 
 whistling of fifes, braying of trumpets, groans of the dying, 
 and tramphng of cavalry, without ever going to the wars ; but 
 it is more especially in the art of imitating inimitable things, 
 and giving the language of every passion and sentiment of 
 the human mind, so as entirely to do away the necessity of 
 speech, that I particularly excel the most celebrated musicians 
 of ancient and modern times. 
 
 I think, sir, I may venture to say there is not a sound in the 
 whole compass of nature which I cannot imitate, and even 
 improve upon ; — nay, what I consider the perfection of my art, 
 I have discovered a method of expressing, in the most striking 
 manner, that undefinable, indescribable silence which accom- 
 panies the falling of snow. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 125 
 
 In order to prove to you that I do not arrogate to myself 
 what I am unable to perform, I will detail to you the different 
 movements of a grand piece which I pride myself upon ex- 
 ceedingly, called the "Breaking up of the ice in the North 
 River." 
 
 The piece opens with a gentle andante affetuosso, which ush- 
 ers you iuto the assembly-room ia the state-house in Albany, 
 where the speaker addresses his farewell speech, informing the 
 members that the ice is about breaking up, and thanking them 
 for their great services and good behaviour in a manner so pa- 
 thetic as to bring tears into their eyes. — Flourish of Jacks-a- 
 donkies.— Ice cracks; Albany in a hub-bub :— air, " Three chil- 
 dren sliding on the ice, all on a summer's day."— Citizens 
 
 quarreUing in Dutch; chorus of a tin trumpet, a cracked 
 
 fiddle, and a hand-saw! allegro moderato. — Hard frost :— this, 
 
 i£ given with proper spirit, has a charming effect, and sets 
 every body's teeth chattering. — Symptoms of snow — consulta- 
 tion of old women who complain of pains in the bones and 
 
 rheumatics; ^air, "There was an old woman tossed up in a 
 
 blanket," &c. allegro staccato; wagon breaks into the ice; 
 
 — people aU run to see what is the matter ; air, siciliano — 
 
 "Can you row the boat ashore, BiUy boy, BiUy boy;" — aw- 
 
 dawfe;— frost fish froze up in the ice; air, — " Ho, why dost 
 
 thou shiver and shake, Gaffer Gray, and why does thy nose 
 
 . look so blue ?" Flourish of two-penny trumpets and rattlers ; 
 
 — consultation of the North-river society ; — determine to set the 
 North-river on fire, as soon as it wiU burn;— air, "O, what a 
 fine kettle of fish." 
 
 Part n. — Gee AT Thaw. — This consists of the most melting 
 strains, flowing so smoothly as to occasion a great overflowing 
 of scientific rapture ; air — " One misty moisty morning." The 
 house of assembly breaks up — air — "The owls came out and 
 flew about." Assembly-men embark on their way to New- 
 York air "The ducks and the geese they all swam over, 
 
 fal, de ral," &c. Vessel sets sail — chorus of mariners— 
 
 "Steer her up, and let her gang." After this a rapid move- 
 ment conducts you to New York ;— the North-river society hold 
 a meeting at the comer of WaU-street, and determine to delay 
 burning till all the assembly-men are safe home, for fear of 
 consuming some of their own members who belong to that re- 
 spectable body. Eetum again to the capital. — Ice floats down 
 the river; lamentation of skaters; sdr, affettwaso—" 1 sigh, and 
 lament me in vain," &c.— Albanians cutting up sturgeon;— air, 
 
126 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 "O the roast beef of Albany." — Ice runs against Polopoy's 
 
 island, with a terrible crash.— This is represented by a fierce 
 feUow travelling with his fiddle-stick over a huge bass viol, at 
 the ratCjOf one hundred and fifty bars a minute, and tearing the 
 music to rags; — this being what is called execution. — The great 
 body of ice passes West-point, and is saluted by three or four 
 dismounted cannon, from Fort Putnam. — "Jefferson's march" 
 by a fuU band; — air, "Yankee doodle," with seventy-six varia- 
 tions, never before attempted, except by the celebrated eagle, 
 which flutters liis wings over the copper-bottomed angel at 
 Messrs. Paff's in Broadway. Ice passes New- York : conch-shell 
 sounds at a distance — ferrymen calls o-v-e-r ; — people run down 
 
 Oourtlandt-street— ferry-boat sets saU an-— accompanied by 
 
 the conch-shell— " We'U all go over the ferry." — Rondeau — 
 giving a particular account of Brom the Powles-hook admiral, 
 who is supposed to be closely connected with the North-river 
 society.— The society make a grand attempt to fire the stream, 
 but are utterly defeated by a remarkable high tide, which 
 brings the plot to light; drowns upwards of a thousand rats, 
 and occasions twenty robins to break their necks.* — Society 
 not being discouraged, apply to " Common Sense," for his lan- 
 tern; Air — "Nose, nose, jolly red nose." Flock of wild 
 
 geese fly over the city ; — old wives chatter in the fog — cocks 
 crow at Communipaw — drums beat on Governor's island. — 
 The whole to conclude with the blowing up of Sand's powder-, 
 house. 
 
 Thus, sir, you perceive what wonderful powers of expression 
 have been hitherto locked up in this enchanting art : — a whole 
 history is here told without the aid of speech, or writing; and 
 provided the hearer is in the least acquainted with music, he 
 cannot mistake a single note. As to the blowing up of the 
 powder-house, I look upon it as a chef (Vouvre, which I am 
 confident wfll delight all modern amateurs, who very properly 
 estimate music in proportion to the noise it makes, and deUght 
 in thundering cannon and earthquakes. 
 
 I must confess, however, it is a difficult part to manage, and 
 I have already broken six pianos in giving it the proper force 
 and effect. But I do not despair, and am quite certain that by 
 the time I have broken eight or ten more, I shall have brought 
 it to such perfection, as to be able to teach any young lady of 
 tolerable ear, to thunder it away to the infinite delight of papa 
 
 *Vifie — Solomon Lang. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 127 
 
 and mamma, and the great annoyance of those Vandals, who 
 are so barbarous as to prefer the simple melody of a Scots air, 
 to the sublime effusions of modern musical doctors. 
 
 In my warm anticipations of future improvement, I have 
 sometimes almost convinced myself that music will, in time, 
 be brought to such a chmax of perfection, as to supersede the 
 necessity of speech and writing; and every kind of social 
 intercourse be conducted by the flute and fiddle. — The immense 
 benefits that wiU result from this improvement must be plain 
 to every man of the least consideration. In the present un- 
 happy situation of mortals, a man has but one way of making 
 himself perfectly understood ; if he loses his speech, he must 
 inevitably be dumb all the rest of his life; but having once 
 leai-ned this new musical language, the loss of speech will be a 
 mere trifle not worth a moment's uneasiness. Not only this, 
 Mr. L., but it wiU add much to the harmony of domestic inter- 
 course ; for it is certainly much more agreeable to hear a lady 
 give lectures on the piano than, viva voce, in the usual discord, 
 ant measure. This manner of discoursing may also, I think, 
 be introduced with great effect into our national assembUes, 
 where every man, instead of wagging his tongue, should be 
 obHged to flourish a fiddle-stick, by which means, if he said 
 nothing to the purpose, he would, at aU events, "discourse 
 most eloquent music," which is more than can be said of most 
 of them at present. They might also sound their own trumpets 
 without being obhged to a hireling scribbler, for an immortahty 
 of nine days, or subjected to the censure of egotism. 
 
 But the most important result of this discovery is that it 
 maybe applied to the establishment of that great desideratum, 
 in the learned world, a universal language. Wherever this 
 science of music is cultivated, nothing more will be necessary 
 than a knowledge of its alphabet; which being ahnost the 
 same everywhere, will amount to a universal medium of com- 
 munication. A man may thus, with his vioHn under his arm, 
 a piece of rosin, and a few bundles of catgut, fiddle his way 
 through the world, and never be at a loss to make himself 
 imderstood. 
 
 I am, etc. 
 
 Demy Semiquaver. 
 
 [end of vol. one.] 
 
SALMAGUNDI 
 
 VOLUME TWO. 
 
 NOTE BY THE PUBLISHER. 
 
 Without the knowledge or permission of the authors, and "which, if he dared, he 
 would have placed near where their remarks are made on the great difference of 
 manners which exists between the sexes now, from what it did in the days of our 
 grandames. The danger of that cheek-hy-jowl familiarity of the present day, must 
 be obvious to many; and I think the following a strong example of one of its evils. 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM "THE MIRROR OF THE GRACES." 
 
 "I REMEMBER the Count M , one of the most accomplished 
 
 and handsomest young men in Vienna ; when I was there he 
 was passionately in love with a girl of almost peerless beauty. 
 She was the daughter of a man of great rank, and great influ- 
 ence at court ; and on these considerations, as well as in regard 
 to her charms, she was followed by a multitude of suitors. 
 She was lively and amiable, and treated them all with an affa- 
 bility which still kept them in her train, although it was gener- 
 ally known she had avowed a partiality for Count M ; and 
 
 that preparations were making for their nuptials. The Count 
 was of a refined mind, and a dehcate sensibility; he loved her 
 for herself alone : for the virtues which he believed dwelt in 
 her beautiful form ; and, like a lover of such perfections, he 
 never approached her without timidity ; and when he touched 
 her, a fire shot through his veins, that warned him not to 
 invade the vermiUion sanctuary of her Mps. Such were his 
 feelings when, one evening, at his intended father-in-law's, a 
 party of young people were mot to celebrate a certain festival; 
 several of the young lady's rejected suitors were present. For- 
 feits were one of the pastimes, and all went on with the great- 
 est merriment, till the Count was commanded, by some witty 
 
130 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 mavi'selle, to redeem his glove by saluting the cheek of his 
 intended bride. The Count blushed, trembled, advanced, 
 retreated; again advanced to his mistress;— and,— at last,— 
 with a tremor that shook his whole soul, and every fibre of his 
 frame, with a modest and diffident grace, he took the soft 
 ringlet which played upon her cheek, pressed it to his Mps, and 
 retired to demand his redeemed pledge in the most evident 
 confusion. His mistress gaUy smiled, and the game went on. 
 
 "One of her rejected suitors who was of a merry, unthink- 
 ing disposition, was adjudged by the same indiscreet crier of 
 the forfeits as "his last treat before he hanged himself "to 
 snatch a kiss from the object of his recent vows. A lively con- 
 test ensued between the gentleman and lady, which lasted for 
 more than a minute ; but the lady yielded, though in the midst 
 of a convulsive laugh. 
 
 " The Count had the mortification — the agony — to see the 
 lips, which his passionate and delicate love would not permit 
 him to touch, kissed with roughness, and repetition, by 
 another man :— even by one whom he reaUy despised. Mourn- 
 fully and silently, without a word, he rose from his chair— left 
 the room and the house. By that good-natured kiss the fair 
 boast of Vienna lost her lover — lost her husband. The CoutfT 
 
 NEVER SAW HER MORE." 
 
SALMAaUNDI. . 1^1 
 
 NO. XL-TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1807. 
 
 LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB ZELI KHAN, 
 
 CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACOHEM, PEINCIPAL SLAVE- 
 DEIVEK TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI. 
 
 The deep shadows of midnight gather around me;— the foot- 
 steps of the passengers have ceased in the streets, and nothing 
 disturhs the holy silence of the hour save the sound of distant 
 drums, mingled with the shouts, the bawlings, and the discord- 
 ant revelry of his majesty, the sovereign mob. Let the hour 
 be sacred to friendship, and consecrated to thee, oh, thou 
 brother of my inmost soul I 
 
 Oh, Asem ! I almost shrink at the recollection of the scenes 
 of confu&ion, of licentious disorganization, which I have wit- 
 nessed during the last three days. I have beheld this whole 
 city, nay, this whole state, given up to the tongue, and the 
 pen; to thepufEers, the bawlers, the babblers, and the slang- 
 whangers. I have beheld the community convulsed with a 
 civil war, or civil talk ; individuals verbally massacred, fami- 
 lies annihilated by whole sheets full, and slang- whan gers coolly 
 bathing their pens in ink and rioting in the slaughter of their 
 thousands. I have seen, in short, that awfid despot, the peo- 
 ple, in the moment of unlimited power, wielding newspapers 
 in one hand, and with the other scattering mud and filth 
 about, Kke some desperate lunatic reheved from the restraints 
 of his straight waistcoat. I have seen beggars on horseback, 
 ragamuffins riding in coaches, and swine seated in places of 
 honour; I have seen hberty; I have seen equality; I have seen 
 fraternity! — I have seen that great political puppet-show 
 
 AN ELECTION. 
 
 A few days ago the friend, whom I have mentioned in some 
 of my former letters, called upon me to accompany him to 
 
132 • SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 witness this grand ceremony ; and we forthwith sallied out to 
 the polls, as he called them. Though for several weeks before 
 this splendid exhibition, nothing else had been talked of, yet I 
 do assure thee I was entirely ignorant of its nature ; and when, 
 on coming up to a church, my companion informed me we 
 were at the poU, I supposed that an election was some great 
 rehgious ceremony like the fast of Eamazan, or the great fes- 
 tival of Haraphat, so celebrated in the east. 
 
 My friend, however, undeceived me at once, and entered 
 into a long dissertation on the nature and object of an elec- 
 tion, the substance of which was nearly to this effect: "Tou 
 know," said he, "that this country is engaged in a violent ia- 
 temal warfare, and suffers a variety of evils from civil dissen- 
 sions. An election is a grand trial of strength, the decisive 
 battle, when the beUigerents draw out their forces in martial 
 array ; when every leader, burning with warlike ardour, and 
 encouraged by the shouts and acclamations of tatterdemahons, 
 buffoons, dependents, parasites, toad eaters, scrubs, vagrants, 
 mumpers, ragamuffins, bravoes, and beggars, in his rear; and 
 puffed up by his bellows-blowing slang-whangers, waves gal- 
 lantly the banners of faction, and presses forward to opfioe 
 
 AND IMMORTALITY ! , 
 
 "For a month or two previous to the critical period which is 
 to decide this important affair, the whole community is in a 
 ferment. Every man, of whatever rank or degree, such is the 
 wonderful patriotism of the people, disinterestedly neglects his 
 business, to devote himself to his country ; — and not an insig- 
 nificant fellow, but feels himself inspired, on this occasion, 
 with as much warmth in favour of the cause he has espoused, 
 as if all the comfort of his life, or even his life itself, was de- 
 pendent on the issue. Grand councils of war are, in the first 
 place, called by the different powers, which are dubbed gsn- 
 eral meetings, where all the head workmen of the party col- 
 lect, and arrange the order of battle; — appoint the different 
 commanders, and their subordinate instruments, and furnish 
 the funds indispensable for supplying the expenses of the war. 
 Inferior councils are next called in the different classes or 
 wards; consisting of young cadets, who are candidates for 
 offices; idlers who come there for mere curiosity; and orators 
 who appear for the purpose of detailing all the crimes, the 
 faults, or the weaknesses of their opponents, and speaking the 
 sense of the meeting, as it is called ; for as the meeting gen- 
 erally consists of men whose quota of sense, taken individually 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 133 
 
 would make but a poor figure, these orators are appointed to 
 collect it all in a lump ; when I assure you it makes a very 
 formidable appearance, and furnishes sufficient matter to spin 
 an oration of two or three hours. 
 
 "The orators who declaim at these meetings are, with a 
 few exceptions, men of most profound and perplexed elo- 
 quence ; who are the oracles of barbers' shops, market-places, 
 and porter-houses; and who you may see everyday at the 
 comers of the streets, taking honest men prisoners by the but- 
 ton, and talking their ribs quite bare without mercy and with- 
 out end. These orators, in addressing an audience, generally 
 mount a chair, a table, or an empty beer barrel, which last is 
 supposed to afford considerable inspiration, and thunder away 
 their combustible sentiments at the heads of the audience, 
 who are generally so busily employed in smoking, drinking, 
 and hearing themselves talk, that they seldom hear a word of 
 the matter. This, however, is of little moment; for as they 
 come there to agree at all events to a certain set of resolutions, 
 or articles of war, it is not at all necessary to hear the speech ; 
 more especially as few would understand it if they did. Do 
 not suppose, however, that the minor persons of the meeting 
 are entirely idle. — Besides smoking and drinking, which are 
 generally practised, there are few who do not come with as 
 great a desire to talk as the orator himself ; each has his httle 
 circle of hsteners, in the midst of whom he sets his hat on one 
 side of his head, and deals out matter-of-fact information; and 
 draws self-evident conclusions, with the pertinacity of a ped- 
 ant, and to the great edification of his gaping auditors. Nay, 
 the very urchins from the mn-sery, who are scarcely eman- 
 cipated fxom the dominion of birch, on these occasions strut 
 pigmy great men; — ^bellow for the instruction of gray-bearded 
 ignorance, and, like the frog in the fable, endeavour to puff 
 themselves up to the size of the great object of their emulation 
 — the principal orator. " 
 
 "But is it not preposterous to a degree," cried I, "for those 
 puny whipsters to attempt to lecture age and experience 8 
 They should be gent to school to learn better." "Not at all," 
 replied my friend; "for as an election is nothing more than a 
 war of words, the man that can wag hie tongue with the 
 greatest elasticity, whether ho speaks to the purpose or not, 
 is entitled to lecture at ward meetings and polls, and instruct 
 all who are inclined to hsten to him : you may have remarked 
 a ward meeting of politic dogs, where although the great dog 
 
134 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 is, ostensibly, the leader, and makes the most noise, yet every 
 httle scoundrel of a cur has som^ething to say ; and in propor- 
 tion to his insignificance, fidgets, and worries, and puflEs about 
 mightily, in order to obtain the notice and approbation of his 
 betters. Thus it is with these little, beardless, bread-and-but- 
 ter politicians who, on this occasion, escape from the jurisdic- 
 tion of their mammas to attend to the affairs of the nation. 
 You win see them engaged in dreadful wordy contest with old 
 cartmen, cobblers, and tailors, and plume themselves not a lit- 
 tle if they should chance to gain a victory. — Aspiring spuits! 
 how interesting are the first dawnings of political greatness ! 
 an election, my friend, is a nursery or hot-bed of genius in a 
 logocracy; and I look with enthusiasm on a troop of these 
 LUliputian partisans, as so many chatterers, and orators, and 
 puffers, and slang-whangers in embryo, who will one day take 
 an important part in the quarrels, and wordy wars of their 
 country. 
 
 "As the time for fighting the decisive battle approaches, ap- 
 pearances become more and more alarming; committees are 
 appointed, who hold little encampments from whence they 
 send out small detachments of tattlers, to reconnoitre, harass, 
 and skirmish with the enemy, and if possible, ascertain then- 
 numbers ; every body seems big Avith the mighty event that is 
 impending; the orators they gradually swell up beyond their 
 usual size; the little orators they grow greater and greater; 
 the secretaries of the ward committees strut about looking like 
 wooden oracles ; the puffers put on the airs of mighty conse- 
 quence; the slang-whangers deal out direful innuendoes, and 
 threats of doughty import ; and aU is buzz, murmur, suspense, 
 and subUmity ! 
 
 "At length the day arrives. The storm that has been so 
 long gathering, and threatening in distant thunders, bursts 
 forth in terrible explosion : all business is at an end ; the whole 
 city is in a tumult ; the people are running helter-skelter, they 
 know not whither, and they know not why; the hackney 
 coaches rattle through the streets with thundering vehe- 
 mence, loaded with recruiting Serjeants who have been prowl- 
 ing in cellars and caves, to unearth some miserable minion of 
 poverty and ignorance, who wOl barter his vote for a glass of 
 beer, or a ride in a coach with such fine gentlemen!— the buz- 
 zards of the party scamper from poU to poU, on foot or on 
 horseback ; and they worry from committee to committee, and 
 buzz, and fume, and talk big, and — do nothing : like the vaga- 
 
SA LMA G UNDI. 1 35 
 
 bond drone, who wastes Ms time in the laborious idleness of 
 see-saw-song, and busy nothragness. " 
 
 I know not how long my friend would have continued his 
 detail, had he not been intermpted by a squabble which took 
 placej between two old continentals, as they were called. It 
 seems they had entered into an argument on the respective 
 merits of their cause, and not being able to make each other 
 clearly understood, resorted to what is called knock-down ar- 
 guments, which form the superlative degree of argumentum 
 ad hominem ; but are, ia my opinion, extremely inconsistent 
 with the true spirit of a genuine logocracy. After they had 
 beaten each other soundly, and set the whole mob together by 
 the ears, they came to a fuU explanation ; when it was discov- 
 ered that they were both of the same way of thinking; — where- 
 upon they shook each other heartily by the hand, and laughed 
 with great glee at their humorous misunderstanding. 
 
 I could not help being struck with the exceeding great num- 
 ber of ragged, dirty-looking persons that swaggered about the 
 place and seemed to think themselves the bashaws of the land. 
 I inquired of my friend, if these people were employed to drive 
 away the hogs, dogs, and other intruders that might thrust 
 themselves in and interrupt the ceremony? "By no means," 
 replied he; "these are the representatives of the sovereign 
 people, who come here to make governors, senators, and mem- 
 bers of assembly, and are the source of aU power and authority 
 in this nation." "Preposterous!" said I, "how is it possible 
 that such men can be capable of distinguishing between an 
 honest man and a knave; or even if they were, wUl it not 
 always happen that they are led by the nose by some intrig- 
 uing demagogue, and made the mere tools of ambitious poKtical 
 jugglers? Surely it would be better to trust to providence, or 
 even to chance, for governors, than resort to the discriminat- 
 ing powers of an ignorant mob. — I plainly perceive the con- 
 sequence. A man who possesses superior talents, and that 
 honest pride which ever accompanies this possession, will al- 
 ways be sacrificed to some creeping insect who will prostitute 
 himself to familiarity with the lowest of mankind; and, Mke 
 the idolatrous Egyptian, worship the wallowing tenants of 
 filth and mire." 
 
 " All this is true enough," replied my friend, "but after all, 
 you cannot say but that this is a free country, and that the 
 people can get drunk cheaper here, particularly at elections, 
 than in the despotic countries of the east." I could not, with 
 
136 8ALMAGUNDI. 
 
 any degree of propriety or truth, deny tliis last assertion; for 
 just at that moment a patriotic brewer arrived with a load of 
 beer, which, for a moment, occasioned a cessation of argu- 
 ment. The great crowd of buzzards, puffers, and "old con- 
 tinentals " of all parties, who throng to the polls, to persuade, 
 to cheat, or to force the freeholders into the right way, and to 
 maintain the freedom of suffrage, seemed for a moment to for- 
 get their antipathies and joined, heartily, in a copious libation 
 of this patriotic and argumentative beverage. 
 
 These beer-barrels indeed seem to be most able logicians, 
 well stored with that kind of sound argument best suited to 
 the comprehension, and most rehshed by the mob, or sovereign 
 people ; who are never so tractable as when operated upon by 
 this convincing hquor, which, in fact, seems to be imbued 
 with the very spirit of a logocracy. No sooner does it begin 
 its operation, than the tongue waxes exceeding valorous, and 
 becomes impatient for some mighty conflict. The puffer puts 
 himself at the head of his body-guard of buzzards, and his 
 legion of ragamuffins, and wo then to every unhappy adver- 
 sary who is uninspired by the deity of the beer-barrel — he is 
 sure to be talked and argued into complete insignificance. 
 
 While I was making these observations, I was surprised to 
 observe a bashaw, high in office, shaking a fellow by the hand, 
 that looked rather more ragged than a scare-crow, and inquir- 
 ing with apparent solicitude concerning the health of his 
 family; after which he slipped a little folded paper into his 
 hand, and turned away. I could not help applauding his 
 humility in shaking the fellow's hand, and his benevolence in 
 relieving his distresses, for I imagined the paper contained 
 something for the poor man's necessities ; and truly he seemed 
 verging towards the last stage of starvation. My friend, how- 
 ever, soon undeceived me by saying that this was an elector, 
 and that the bashaw- had merely given him the list of candi- 
 dates for whom he was to vote. "Ho! ho!" said I, "then he 
 is a particular friend of the bashaw?" "By no means," replied 
 my friend, "the bashaw wiU^pass him without notice the day 
 after the election, except, perhaps, just to drive over him with 
 his coach." 
 
 My friend then proceeded to inform me that for some time 
 before, and during the continuance of an election, there was a 
 most delectable courtship, or intrigue, carried on between the 
 great bashaws and the mother mob. That mother mob gener- 
 ally preferred the attentions of the rabble, or of fellows of her 
 
^AZMA Q UJVDI. 137 
 
 own stamp ; but would sometimes condescend to be treated to a 
 feasting, or any thing of that kind, at the bashaw's expense ; 
 nay, soinetimes when she was in good humour, she would con- 
 descend to toy with them in her rough way : — but wo be to the 
 bashaw who attempted to be familiar with her, for she was the 
 most pestilent, cross, crabbed, scolding, thieving, scratching, 
 toping, wrong-headed, rebellious, and abominable termagant 
 that ever was let loose in the world, to the confusion of honest 
 gentlemen bashaws. 
 
 Just then a fellow came round and distributed among the 
 crowd a number of hand-bUls, written by the ghost of Wash- 
 ington, the fame of whose illustrious actions, and stiU more 
 illustrious virtues, has reached even the remotest regions of 
 the east, and who is venerated by this people as the Father of 
 his country. On reading this paltry paper, I could not re- 
 strain my indignation. "Insulted hero," cried I, "is it thus 
 thy name is profaned, thy memory disgraced, thy spirit drawn 
 down from heaven tc* administer to the brutal violence of 
 party rage ! — It is thus the necromancers of the east, by their 
 infernal incantations, sometimes call up the shades of the just, 
 to give their sanction to frauds, to lies, and to every species of 
 enormity." My friend smiled at my warmth, and observed, 
 that raising ghosts, and not only raising them, but making them 
 speak, was one of the miracles of elections. "And believe 
 me," continued he, "there is good reason for the ashes of 
 departed heroes being disturbed on these occasions, for such 
 is the sandy foundation of our government, that there never 
 happens an election of an alderman, or a collector, or even a 
 constable, but we are in imminent danger of losing our liber- 
 ties, and becoming a province of France, or tributary to the 
 British islands." "By the hump of Mahomet's camel," said I, 
 "but this is only another striking example of the prodigious 
 great scale on which every thing is transacted in this country I" 
 
 By this time, I had become tired of the scene; my head 
 ached with the uproar of voices, mingUng in all the discordant 
 tones of triumphant exclamation, nonsensical argument, in- 
 temperate reproach, and drunken absurdity.— The confusion 
 was such as no language can adequately describe, and it seemed 
 as if aU the restraints of decency, and aU the bands of law, 
 had been broken, and given place to the wide ravages of licen- 
 tious brutality. These, thought I, are the orgies of liberty! 
 these are the manifestations of the spirit of independence! 
 these are thet symbols of man's sovereignty! Head of Maho- 
 
138 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 met! with what a fatal and inexorable despotism do empty 
 names and ideal phantoms exercise their dominion over the 
 himaan mind ! The experience of ages has demonstrated, that 
 in all nations, barbarous or enlightened, the mass of the people, 
 the mob, must be slaves, or they wUl be tyrants; but their 
 tyranny will not be long:— some ambitious leader, having at 
 first condescended to be their slave, will at length become their 
 master ; and in proportion to the vUeness of his former servi- 
 tude, will be the severity of his subsequent tyranny. — Yet, 
 with innumerable examples staring them in the face, the 
 people still bawl out liberty ; by which they mean nothing but 
 freedom from every species of legal restraint, and a warrant 
 for all kinds of licentiousness : and the bashaws and leaders, 
 in courting the mob, convince them of their power; and by 
 administering to their passions, for the purposes of ambition, 
 at length learn, by fatal experience, that he who worships the 
 beast that carries him on his back, will sooner or later be 
 thrown into the dust and trampled under foot by the animal 
 who has learnt the secret of its power by this very adoration. 
 
 Ever thiae, 
 
 MUSTAPHA. 
 
 PROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 MINE UNCLE JOHN. 
 
 To those whose habits of abstraction may have led them 
 into some of the secrets of their own minds, and whose free- 
 dom from daily toil has left them at leisure to analyze their 
 feelings, it wiU be nothing new to say that the present is pecu' 
 liarly the season of remembrance. The flowers, the zephyrs, 
 and the warblers of spring, returning after their tedious ab- 
 sence, bring naturally to our recollection past times and buried 
 feelings; and the whispers of the full-foliaged grove, fall on 
 the ear of contemplation, like the sweet tones of far distant 
 friends whom the rude j ostlers of the world have severed from 
 us and cast far beyond our reach. It is at such times, that 
 casting backward many a lingering look we recall, with a 
 kind of sweet-souled melancholy, the days of our youth, and 
 the jocund companions who started with us the race of life, 
 but parted midway in the journey to pursue some winding 
 
SA LMA G UNDI. 1 39 
 
 path that allured them with a prospect more seducing— and 
 never returned to us again. It is then, too, if we have been 
 afflicted with any heavy sorrow, if we have even lost— and 
 who has not! — an old friend, or chosen companion, that his 
 shade wUl ;hover around us ; the memory of his virtues press 
 on the heart ; and a thousand endearing recollections, forgotten 
 amidst the cold pleasures and midnight dissipations of winter, 
 arise to our remembrance. 
 
 These speculations bring to my mind my itncle john, the 
 history of whose loves, and disappointments, I have promised 
 to the world. Though I must own myself much addicted to 
 forgetting my promises, yet, as I have been so happily re- 
 minded of this, I believe I must pay it at once, "and there is 
 an end." Lest my readers — good-natured souls that they are! 
 — should, in the ardour of peeping into millstones, take my 
 uncle for an old acquaintance, I here' inform them, that the 
 ,old gentleman died a great many years ago, and it is impossi- 
 ble they should ever have known hmi: — I pity them — for they 
 would have known a good-natured, benevolent man, whose 
 example might have been of service. 
 
 The last time I saw my uncle John was fifteen years ago, 
 when I paid him a visit at his old mansion. I found him read- 
 ing a newspaper — for it was election time, and he was always 
 a warm federahst, and had made several converts to the true 
 political faith in his time ;— particularly one old tenant, who 
 always, just before the election, became a violent anti; — ^in 
 order that he might be convinced of his errors by my uncle, 
 who never failed to reward his conviction by some substantial 
 benefit. 
 
 After we had settled the affairs of the nation, and I had paid 
 my respects to the old family chronicles in the kitchen,— an 
 indispensable ceremony, — the old gentleman exclaimed, with 
 heart-felt glee, "Well, I suppose you are for a trout-fishing;- 
 I have got every thing prepared ;— but first you must take a 
 walk with me to see my improvements." I was obliged to 
 consent; though I knew my uncle would lead me a most 
 villainous dance, and in all probability treat me to a quagmire, 
 or a tumble into a ditch. If my readers choose to accompany 
 me in this expedition, they are welcome ; if not, let them stay 
 at home hke lazy fellows— and sleep— or be hanged. 
 
 Though I had been absent several years, yet there was very 
 little alteration in the scenery, and every object retained the 
 same features it bore when I was a school-boy : for it was in 
 
140 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 this spot that I grew up in the fear of ghosts, and in the hrea'k- 
 ing of many of the ten commandments. The brook, or river 
 as they would call it in Europe, still murmured with its wonted 
 sweetness through the meadow ; and its banks were stUl tufted 
 with dwarf willows, that bent down to the surface. The same 
 echo inhabited the valley, and the same tender air of repose 
 pervaded the whole scene. Even my good imcle was but hltlo 
 altered, except that his hair was grown a Uttle grayer, and his 
 forehead had lost some of its former smoothness. Ho had, 
 however, lost nothing of his former activity, and laughed 
 heartily at the difficulty I found in keeping up with him as ho 
 stumped through bushes, and briers, and hedges; talking all 
 the time about his improvements, and telling what he would 
 do with such a spot of ground and such a tree. At length, 
 after showing me his stone fences, his famous two-year-old 
 bull, his new invented cart, which was to go before the horse, 
 and his Eclipse colt, he was pleased to return home to dinner. 
 
 After dinner and returning thanks, — which with him was 
 not a ceremony merely, but an offering from the heart,— my 
 uncle opened his trunk, took out Ms fishing-tackle, and, with- 
 out saying a word, sallied forth with some of those truly 
 alarming steps which Daddy Neptune once took when he was 
 in a great hurry to attend to the affair of the siege of Troy. 
 Trout-fishing was my uncle's favourite sport ; and, though I 
 always caught two fish to his one, he never would acknowl- 
 edge my superiority ; but puzzled himself often emd often to 
 account for such a singular phenomenon. 
 
 Following the current of the brook for a mUe or two, we re- 
 traced many of our old haunts, and told a hundred adventures 
 which had befallen us at different times. It was like snatch- 
 ing the hour-glass of time, inverting it, and rolling back again 
 the sands that had marked the lapse of years. At length the 
 shadows began to lengthen, the south-wind gradually settled 
 into a perfect calm, the sun threw his rays tbrough the trees 
 on the hUl-tops in golden lustre, and a kind of Sabbath still- 
 ness pervaded the whole valley, indicating that the hour was 
 fast approaching which was to relieve for a while the farmer 
 from his rural labour, the ox from his toO, the school-urchin 
 from his primer, and bring the loving ploughman home to the 
 feet of his blopming dairymaid. 
 
 As we were watching in silence the last rays of the sun 
 beaming their farewell radiance on the high hOls at a distance 
 my uncle exclaimed, m a kind of half-desponding tone, while 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 141 
 
 he rested his arm over an old tree that had fallen—" I know 
 not how it is, my dear Launce, but such an evening, and such 
 a stUl quiet scene as this, always make me a little sad ; and it 
 is, at such a time, I am most apt to look forward with regret 
 to the period when this farm, on which " I have been young, 
 but now am old," and every object around me that is endeared 
 by long acquaiatance, — when aU these and I must shake hands 
 and part. I have no fear of death, for my life has afEorded 
 but httle temptation to wickedness ; and when I die, I hope to 
 leave behind me more substantial proofs of virtue than will 
 be found in my epitaph, and more lasting memorials than 
 churches built or hospitals endowed ; with wealth wrung from 
 the hard hand of poverty by an unfeehng landlord or unprin- 
 cipled knave ; — ^but stUl, when I pass such a day as this and 
 contemplate such a scene, I cannot help feeling a latent wish 
 to linger yet a little longer in this peaceful asylum ; to enjoy a 
 httle more sunshine in this world, and to have a few more 
 fishing-matches with my boy." As he ended he raised his 
 hand a little from the fallen tree, and dropping it languidly by 
 his side, turned himself towards home. The sentiment, the 
 look, the action, all seemed to be prophetic. And so they 
 were, for when I shook him by the hand and bade him fare- 
 well the next morning— it was for the last time ! 
 
 He died a bachelor, at the age of sixty-three, though he had 
 been all his life trying to get married; and always thought 
 himself on the point of accomplishing his wislies. His dis- 
 appointments were not owing either to the deformity of his 
 mind or person ; for in his youth he was reckoned handsome, 
 and I myself can witness for him that he had as kind a heart 
 as ever was fashioned by heaven ; neither were they owing to 
 his poverty, — which sometimes stands in an honest man's 
 way; — ^for he was bom to the inheritance of a small estate 
 which was sufficient to estabhsh his claim to the title of "one 
 well-to-do in the world." The truth is, my uncle had a prodig- 
 ious antipathy to doing things in a hurry.— "A man should 
 consider," said he to me once—" that he can always get a wife, 
 but cannot always get rid of her. For my part," continued 
 he, " I am a young fellow, with the world before me,"— he was 
 but about forty!— "and am resolved to look sharp, weigh 
 matters well, and know what's what, before I marry:- in 
 short, Launce, I don't intend to do the thing in a hurry, depend 
 upon it.'' On this whim-wham, he proceeded: he began with 
 yoimg girls, and ended with widows. The girls he courted 
 ^xnfni Wev fiTfiw old maids, or married out of pure apprehen- 
 
142 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 sion of incurring certain penalties hereafter ; and the widows 
 not having quite as much patience, generally, at the end of a 
 year, while the good man thought himself ia the high road to 
 success, married some harum-scarum young fellow, who had 
 not such an antipathy to doing things in a hurry. 
 
 My uncle would have inevitably sunk under these repeated 
 disappointments — for he did not want sensibility— had he not 
 hit upon a discovery which set all to rights at once. He con- 
 soled his vanity, — for he was a little vain, and soothed his 
 pride, which was his master-passion, — by telling his friends 
 very significantly, whale his eye would flash triumph, " that he 
 might have had her.'" — Those who know how much of the bitter- 
 ness of disappointed affection arises from wounded vanity and 
 exasperated pride, will give my uncle credit for this discovery. 
 
 My uncle had been told by a prodigious number of mamed 
 men, and had read in an innumerable quantity of books, that 
 a man could not possibly be happy except in the married state ; 
 so he determined at an early age to marry, that he might not 
 lose his only chance for happiness. He accordingly forthwith 
 paid his addresses to the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman 
 farmer, who was reckoned the beauty of the whole world ; a 
 phrase by which the honest country people mean nothing more 
 than the circle of their acquaintance, or that territory of land 
 which is within sight of the smoke of their own hamlet. 
 
 This young lady, in addition to her beauty, was highly ac- 
 complished, for she had spent five or six months at a boarding- 
 school in town ; where she learned to work pictures in satin, 
 and paint sheep that might be mistaken for wolves ; to hold up 
 her head, sit straight in her chair, and to think every species 
 of useful acquirement beneath her attention. When she re- 
 turned home, so completely had she forgotten every thing she 
 knew before, that on seeing one of the maids milking a cow, 
 she asked her father, with an air of most enchanting ignorance, 
 "what that odd-looking thing was doing to that queer animal?" 
 The old man shook his head at this ; but the mother was de- 
 lighted at these symptoms of gentihty, and so enamoured of 
 her daughter's accomplishments that she actually got framed a 
 picture worked in satin by the young lady. It represented 
 the Tomb Scene in Eomeo and Juliet. Eomeo was dressed in 
 an orange-coloured cloak, fastened round his neck with a large 
 golden clasp; a white satin tamboured waistcoat, leather 
 breeches, blue silk stockings, and white topt boots. The ami- 
 able Juliet shone in a flame-coloured gown, most gorgeously 
 bespangled vrith silver stars, a high-crownod muslin cap that 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 14;j 
 
 reached to the top of the tomb ;— on her feet she wore a pair of 
 short-quartered, high-heeled shoes, and her waist was the exact 
 fac-simile of an inverted sugar-loaf. The head of the "noble 
 county Paris" looked like a chimney-sweeper's brush that had 
 lost its handle ; and the cloak of the good Friar hung about him 
 as gracefully as the armour of a rhinoceros. The good lady 
 considered this picture as a splendid proof of her daughter's 
 accomplishments, and hung it up in the best parlour, as an 
 honest tradesman does his certificate of admission into that en- 
 lightened body yclept the Mechanic Society. 
 
 With this accomplished young lady then did my uncle John 
 become deeply enamoured, and as it was his first love, he de- 
 termined to bestir himself in an extraordinary manner. Once 
 at least in a fortnight, and generally on a Sunday evening, he 
 would put on his leather breeches, for he was a gi-eat beau, 
 mount his gray horse Pepper, and ride over to see Miss Pamela, 
 though she hved upwards of a mile off, and he was obliged to 
 pass close by a church-yard, which at least a hundred credita- 
 ble persons would swear was haunted !— Miss Pamela could not 
 be insensible to such proofs of attachment, and accordingly 
 received him with considerable kindness ; her mother always 
 left the room when he came, and my uncle had as good as 
 made a declaration, by saying one evening, very signifi- 
 cantly, " that he believed that he shoidd soon change his con- 
 dition ;" when, sorhe bow or other, he began to think he was 
 doing things in too great a hurry, and that it was high time to 
 consider ; so he considered near a month about it, and there is 
 no sajTng how much longer he might have spim the thread of 
 his doubts had he not been roused from this state of indecision 
 by the news that his mistress had married an attorney's ap- 
 prentice whom she had seen the Sunday before at church ; where 
 he had excited the applause of the whole congregation by the 
 invincible gravity with which he listened to a Dutch sermon. 
 The young people in the neighbourhood laughed a good deal at 
 ray uncle on the occasion, but he only shrugged his shoulders, 
 looked mysterious, and rephed, " Tut, hoys! I might have had 
 her." 
 
 NOTE BY WILLIAM WIZAED, ESQ. 
 
 Our pHblisher, who is busily engaged in printing a celebrated work, which is per- 
 haps more generally read in this city than any other book, not excepting the Bible; 
 —I mean tlie New York Directory — has begged so hard that we will not overwhelm 
 him with too much of a. good thing, that we have, with Langstafl's approbation, 
 cut short the residue of uncle .John's amours. In all probability it will be given in 
 a future number, whenever Launcelot is in the humour for it— he is such an odd— 
 but, m ' " " " 
 
144 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 NO. XII -SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1807. 
 
 FEOM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 Some men delight in the study of plants, in the dissection ol 
 a leaf, or the contour and complexion of a tulip ;— others are 
 charmed with the beauties of the feathered race, or the varied 
 hues of the insect tribe. A natui'alist will spend hours in the 
 fatiguing pursuit of a butterfly, and a man of the ton will 
 waste whole years in the chase of a fine lady. I feel a respect 
 for their avocations, for my own are somewhat similar. I love 
 to open the great volume of human character : — to me the ex- 
 amination of a beau is more inteiiesting than that of a DafiodU 
 or Narcissus; and I feel a thousand times more pleasure in 
 catching a new view of human nature, than in kidnapping the 
 most gorgeous butterfly, — even an Emperor of Morocco himself ! 
 
 In my present situation I have ample room for the indul- 
 gence of this taste ; for, perhaps, there is not a house in this 
 city more fertile in subjects for the anatomist of human char- 
 acter, than my cousin Cockloft's. Honest Christopher, as 1 
 have before nientioned, is one of those hearty old cavahers 
 who pride themselves upon keeping up the good, honest, un- 
 ceremonious hospitahty of old times. — He is never so happy as 
 when he has drawn about him a knot of sterling-hearted asso- 
 ciates, and sits at the head of his table dispensing a warm, 
 cheering welcome to aU. His countenance expands at every 
 glass and beams forth emanations of hilarity, benevolence, and 
 good-fellowship, that inspire and gladden every guest around 
 him. It is no wonder, therefore, that such excellent social 
 quSlities should attract a host of friends and guests ; in fact, 
 my cousin is almost overwhelmed with them; and they all, 
 uniformly, pronounce old Cockloft to be one of the finest old 
 fellows in the world. His wine also always comes in for a good 
 share of their approbation ; nor do they forget to do honour to 
 
SALMA G UNDI. ] 45 
 
 Mrs. Cockloft's cookery, pronouncing it to be modelled after 
 the most approved recipes of Heliogabulus and Mrs. Glasse. 
 The variety of company thus attracted is particularly pleasing 
 to me ; for, being considered a privileged person in the family, 
 I can sit in a corner, indulge in my favourite amusement of 
 observation, and retreat to my elbow-chair, like a bee to his 
 hive, whenever I have collected sufiB.cient food for meditation. 
 
 Will Wizard is particularly eflQcient in adding to the stock 
 of originals which frequent our house : for he is one of the most 
 inveterate hunters of oddities I evsr knew; and his first care, 
 on making a new acquaintance, ifi to gallant him to old Cock- 
 loft's, where he never fails to recei ve the freedom of the house 
 in a pinch from his gold box. WiU has, without exception, 
 the queerest, most eccentric, and fmdescribable set of intimates 
 that ever man possessed ; how he became acquainted with them 
 I cannot conceive, except by supposing there is a secret attrac- 
 tion or unintelligible sympathy that unconsciously draws to- 
 gether oddities of every soil. 
 
 Will's great crony for some time was Tom Straddle, to whom 
 he really took a great liking. Straddle had just arrived in an 
 importation of hardware, fresh from the city of Birmingham, 
 or rather, as the most learned English would call it, Brummor 
 geni, so famous for its manufactories of gimblets, pen-knives, 
 and pepper-boxes; and where they make buttons and beaux 
 enough to inundate cur whole country. * He was a young man 
 of considerable standing in the manufactory at Birmingham, 
 sometimes had the honour to hand his master's daughter into 
 a tim-whiskey, was the oracle of the tavern he frequented on 
 Sundays, and could beat all his associates, if you would take 
 his word for it, in boxing, beer-drinking, jmnping over chairs, 
 and imitating cats in a gutter and opera singers. Straddle 
 was, moreover, a member of a Catch-club, and was a great 
 hand at ringing bob-majors ; he was, of course, a complete con- 
 noisseur of music, and entitled to assume that character at all 
 performances in the art. He was likewise a member of a 
 Spouting-club, had seen a company of strolling actors perform 
 in a bam, and had even, like Abel Drugger, " enacted" the part 
 of Major Sturgeon with considerable applause ; he was conse- 
 quently a profound critic, and fully authorized to turn up his 
 nose at any American performances. — He had twice partaken 
 of annual dinners, given to the head manufacturers of Birming- 
 ham, where he had the good fortune to get a taste of turtle 
 and turbot ; and a smack of Champaign and Burgundy ; and he 
 
146 SALMA6 UNDX. 
 
 had heard a vast deal of the roast beef of Old England ; he was 
 
 therefore epicure sufficient to d n every dish, and every 
 
 glass of wine, he tasted in America ; though at the same time 
 he was as voracious an animal as ever crossed the Atlantic. 
 Straddle had been splashed half a dozen times by the carriages 
 of nobihty, and had once the superlative felicity of being 
 kicked out of doors by the footman of a noble Duke ; he could, 
 therefore, talk of nobUity and despise the untitled plebeians of 
 America. In short, Straddle was one of those dapper, bustling, 
 florid, round, self-important ' ' gemmen" who bounce upon us 
 half beau, half button-maker; undertake to give us the true 
 polish of the bon-ton, and endeavour to inspire us with a pro- 
 per and dignified contempt of our native country. 
 
 Straddle was quite in raptures when his employers deter- 
 mined to send him to America as an agent. He considered 
 himself as going among a nation of barbarians, where he would 
 be received as a prodigy ; he anticipated, with a proud satisfac- 
 tion, the bustle and confusion his arrival would occasion; the 
 crowd that would throng to gaze at him as he passed through 
 the streets ; and had little doubt but that he should occasion as 
 much curiosity as an Indian-chief or a Turk in the streets of 
 Birmingham. He had heard of the beauty of our women, and 
 chuckled at the thought of how completely he should eclipse 
 their unpolished beaux, and the number of despairing lover's 
 that would mourn the hour of his arrival. I am even informed 
 by Will Wizard that he put good store of beads, spike-nails, 
 and looking-glasses in his trunk to win the affections of the 
 fair ones as they paddled about in their bark canoes ; — the rea- 
 son Will gave for this error of Straddle's, respecting our ladies, 
 was, that he had read in Guthrie's Geography that the abo- 
 rigines of America were all savages, and not exactly under- 
 standing the word aborigines, he applied to one of his fellow 
 apprentices, who assured him that it was the Latin word for 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Wizard used to teU another anecdote of Straddle, which 
 always put him in a passion ; Will swore that the captain of 
 the ship told him, that when Straddle heard they were off the 
 banks of Newfoundland, he insisted upon going on shore there 
 to gather some good cabbages, of which he was excessively 
 fond ; Straddle, however, denied all this, and declared it to be 
 a mischievous quiz of Will Wizard ; who indeed often made 
 himself merry at hi-, expense. However this may be, certain 
 it is, he kept his tailor and shoemaker constantly employed for 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 147 
 
 a month before his departure ; equipped himself with a smart 
 crooked stick about eighteen inches long, a pair of breeches of 
 most unheard-of length, a little short pair of Hoby's white- 
 topped boots, that seemed to stand on tip-toe to reach his 
 breeches, and his hat had the true trans-atlantic dechnation 
 towards his right ear. The fact was, nor did he make any ce- 
 cret of it— he was determined to " astonish the natives a few!" 
 
 Straddle was not a little disappointed on his arrival, to find 
 the Americans were rather more civilized than he had imag- 
 ined; — he was suffered to walk to his lodgings unmolested by a 
 crowd, and even unnoticed by a single individual; — no love- 
 letters came pouring in upon him ; no rivals lay in wait to 
 assassinate him ; his very dress excited no attention, for there 
 were many fools dressed equally ridiculously with himself. 
 This was mortifying indeed to an aspiring youth, who had 
 come out with the idea of astonishing and captivating. 
 He was equally unfortunate in his pretensions to the char- 
 acter of critic, connoisseur, and boxer; he condemned our 
 whole dramatic corps, and everything appertaining to the 
 theatre; but his critical abilities were ridiculed— ho found fault 
 with old Cockloft's dinner, not even sparing his wine, and was 
 never invited to the house afterwards ;— he scoured the streets 
 at night, and was cudgelled by a sturdy watchman ; — he hoaxed 
 an honest mechanic, and was soundly kicked. Thus disap- 
 pointed in all his attempts at notoriety. Straddle hit on the ex- 
 pedient which was resorted to by the Cfiblets — he determined 
 to take the town by storm. — He accordingly bought horses and 
 equipages, and forthwith made a furious dash at style in a gig 
 and tandem. 
 
 As Straddle's finances were but limited, it may easily be sup- 
 posed that his fashionable career infringed a little upon his con- 
 signment, which was indeed the case, for, to use a true cockney 
 phrase, Brummagem suffered. But this was a circumstance 
 that made little impression upon Straddle, who was now a lad 
 of spirit, and lads of spirit always despise the sordid cares of 
 keeping another man's money. Suspecting this circumstance, 
 I never could witness any of his exhibitions of style, without 
 some whimsical association of ideas. Did he give an entertain- 
 ment to a host of guzzling friends, I immediately fancied them 
 gormandizing heartily at the expense of poor Birmingham, 
 and swallowing a consignment of hand-saws and razors. Did 
 I behold him dashing through Broadway in his gig, I saw him, 
 ." in my mind's eye," driving tandem on a nest of tea-boards; 
 
118 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 nor could I ever contemplate his cockney exhibitions of horse* 
 manship, but my mischievous imagination would picture him 
 spurring a cask of hardware like rosy Bacchus bestriding a 
 beer barrel, or the little gentleman who bestraddles the world 
 in the front of Hutching's almanac. 
 
 Straddle was equally successful with the Giblets, as may 
 well be supposed ; for though pedestrian merit may strive in 
 vain to become fashionable in Gotham, yet a candidate in an 
 equipage is always recognized, and like Philip's ass, laden 
 with gold, will gain admittance every where. Mounted in his 
 curricle or his gig, the candidate is like a statue elevated on a 
 high pedestal ; his merits are discernible from afar, and strike 
 the dullest optics. Oh! Gotham, Gotham! most enlightened 
 of cities ! — how does my heart swell with delight when I be- 
 hold your sapient inhabitants lavishing their attention with 
 such wonderful discernment ! 
 
 Thus Straddle became quite a man of ton, and was caressed, 
 and courted, and invited to dinners and balls. Whatever was 
 absurd and ridiculous in him before, was now declared to be 
 the style. He criticised our theatre, and was listened to with 
 reverence. He pronounced our musical entertainments bar- 
 barous ; and the judgment of Apollo himself would not have 
 been more decisive. He abused our dinners ; and the god of 
 eating, if there be any such deity, seemed to speak through his 
 organs. He became at once a man of taste, for he put his 
 malediction on every thing; and his arguments were conclus- 
 ve, for he supported every assertion with a bet. ^He was like- 
 wise pronounced, by the learned in the fashionable world, a 
 young man of great research and deep observation; for he had 
 sent home, as natural curiosities, an ear of Indian com, a pair 
 of moccasons, a belt of wampum, and a four-leaved clover. He 
 had taken great pains to enrich this curious collection with an 
 Indian, and a cataract, but without success. In fine, the peo- 
 ple talked of Straddle and his eqiiipage, and Straddle talked of 
 his horses, until it was impossible for the most critical observer 
 to pronounce, whether Straddle or his horses were most ad- 
 mired, or whether Straddle admired himself or his horses most. 
 
 Straddle was jiow in the zenith of his glory. He swaggered 
 about parlours and drawing-rooms with the same unceremoni- 
 ous confidence he used to display in the taverns at Birming- 
 ham. He accosted a lady as he would a bar-maid, and this 
 was pronounced a certain proof that he had been used to bet- 
 ter company in Birmingham. He became the great man of all 
 
SALMAQUNSl. 149 
 
 the taverns between New-York and Harlem, and no one stood 
 a chance of being accommodated, until Straddle and his horses 
 were perfectly satisfied. He d — — d the landlords and waiters, 
 with the best air in the world, and accosted them with the 
 true gentlemanly familiarity. He staggered from the dinner 
 table to the play, entered the box like a tempest, and staid 
 long enough to be bored to death, and to bore all those who had 
 the misfortune to be near him. From thence he dashed off to a 
 baU, time enough to flounder through a cotillion, tear half a 
 dozen gowns, commit a number of other depredations, and 
 make the whole company sensible of his infinite condescension 
 in coming amongst them. The people of Gotham thought him 
 a prodigious fine fellow; the young bucks cultivated his 
 acquaiutance with the most persevering assiduity, and his 
 retainers were sometimes complimented with a seat ia his cur- 
 ricle, or a ride on one of his fine horses. The beUes were 
 delighted with the attentions of such a fashionable gentleman, 
 and struck with astonishment at his learned distinctions be- 
 tween wrought scissors and those of cast-steel; together with 
 his profound dissertations on buttons and horse-flesh. The 
 rich merchants courted his acquaintance because he was an 
 Englishman, and their wives treated him with great deference, 
 because he had come from beyond seas. I cannot help here 
 pbserving, that your salt water is a marvellous great sharpener 
 of men's wits, and I intend to recommend it to some of my 
 acquaintances in a particular essay. 
 
 Straddle continued his brilliant career for only a short time. 
 His prosperous journey over the turnpike of fashion was 
 checked by some of those stumbling-blocks in the way of aspir- 
 ing youth, called creditors— or duns ;— a race of people, who, 
 as a celebrated writer observes, " are hated by gods and men." 
 Consignments slackened, whispers of distant suspicion floated 
 in the dark, and those pests of society, the tailors and shoe- 
 makers, rose in rebellion against Straddle. In vain were all 
 his remonstrances, in vain did he prove to them that though 
 he had given them no money, yet he had given them more 
 custom, and as many promises, as any young man in the city. 
 They were inflexible, and the signal of danger being given, 
 a host of other prosecutors pounced upon his back. Straddle 
 saw there was but one way for it ; he determined to do the 
 thing genteelly, to go to smash like a hero, and dashed into the 
 limits in high style, being the fifteenth gentleman I have 
 known to drive tandem to the — ne plus ultra — the d 1. 
 
150 SALMA G UHBI. 
 
 Unfortunate Straddle 1 may thy fate be a -warning to all 
 young gentlemen who come out from Birmingham to aston- 
 ish the natives! — I should never have taken the trouble to 
 dUineate his character had he not been a genuine cockney, 
 and worthy to be the representative of his numerous tribe. 
 Perhaps my simple countrymen may hereafter be able to 
 distinguish between the real EngUsh gentleman, and indi- 
 viduals of the cast I have heretofore spoken of, as mere mon- 
 grels, springing at one bound from contemptible obscurity at 
 home, to day-light and splendour in this good-natured land. 
 The true-bom and true-bred EngUsh gentleman is a character 
 I hold in great respect ; and I love to look back to the period 
 when our forefathers flourished in the same generous soil, and 
 hailed each other as brothers. But the cockney !— when I con- 
 template him as springing too from the same soin-ce, I ieel 
 ashamed of the relationship, and am tempted to deny my ori- 
 gin. In the character of Straddle is traced the complete out- 
 Une of a true cockney, of Enghsh growth, and a descendant of 
 that individual facetious character mentioned by Shakspeare, 
 "who in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay." 
 
 THE STRANGEE AT HOME; or, A TOUR IN BROAD- 
 WAY. 
 
 by jebemy cockloft, the youngee. 
 
 Preface. 
 
 Your learned traveller begins his travels at the commence- 
 ment of his journey; others begin theirs at the end; and a 
 third class begin any how and any where, which I think is the 
 true way. A late facetious writer begins what he calls ' ' a Pic- 
 ture of New York," with a particular description of Glen's 
 Falls, from whence with admirable dexterity he makes a 
 digression to the celebrated Mill Rock, on Long-Island ! Now 
 this is what I like ; and I intend, in my present tour, to digress 
 as often and as long as I please. If, therefore, I choose to 
 make a hop, skip, and jump, to China, or New-Holland, or 
 Terra Incognita, or Communipaw, I can produce a host of 
 
SALMAGUADL lol 
 
 examples to jiistify me, even in books that have been praised 
 by the English reviewers, -whose fiat being all that is necessary 
 to give books a currency in this country, I am determined, as 
 soon as I finish my edition of travels in seventy-five volumes, 
 to transmit it forthwith to them for judgment. If these trans- 
 atlantic censors praise it, I have no fear of its success in this 
 country, where their approbation gives, like the tower stamp, 
 a fictitious value, and makes tinsel and wampum pass current 
 for classic gold. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Batteey — flag-staff kept by Louis EeafEee — Eeaffee main- 
 tains two spy-glasses by subscriptions— merchants pay two 
 shillings a-year to look through them at the signal poles on 
 Staten-Island— a very pleasant prospect; but not so pleasant 
 as that from the hill of Howth— quere, ever been there? — 
 Young seniors go down to the flag-staff to buy peanuts and 
 beer, after the fatigue of their morning studies, and sometimes 
 to play at ball, or some other innocent amusement— digression 
 to the Olympic, and Isthmian games, with a description of the 
 Isthmus of Corinth, and that of Darien : to conclude with a dis- 
 sertation on the Indian custom of offering a whiff of tobacco 
 smoke to their great spirit, Areskou. — Return to the battery — 
 delightful place to indulge in the luxury of sentiment— How 
 various are the mutations of this world ! but a few days, a few 
 hours — at least not above two hundred years ago, and this 
 spot was inhabited by a race of aborigines, who dwelt in bark 
 huts, lived upon oysters and Indian com, danced buffalo 
 dances, and were lords " of the fowl and the brute" — but the 
 spirit of time and the spirit of brandy have swept them from 
 their ancient inheritance ; and as the white wave of the ocean, 
 by its ever toiling assiduity, gains on the brown land, so the 
 white man, by slow and sure degrees, has gained on the brown 
 savage, and dispossessed him of the land of his forefathers. — 
 Conjectures on the first peopling of America— different opin- 
 ions on that subject, to the amount of near one hundred — 
 opinion of Augustine Tomiel — that they are the descendants 
 of Shem and Japheth, who came by the way of Japan to 
 America— Juffridius Petri says they came from Friezeland, 
 mem. cold journey.— Mens. Charron says they are descended 
 from the Gauls— bitter enough. — A. MUius, from the Oeltee — 
 Eircher, from the Egyptians— L'Compte, from the Phenicians 
 
152 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 — Lescarbot, from the Canaanites, alias the Anthropophagi— 
 Brerewood from the Tartars — Grotius, from the Norwegians— 
 and Linkmn FideUus has written two folio volumes to prove 
 that America was first of all peopled either by the Antipodeans 
 or the Cornish miners, who, he maintains, might easily have 
 made a subterraneous passage to this country, particularly the 
 antipodeans, who, he asserts, can get along under ground as 
 fast as moles— quere, which of these is in the right, or are they 
 all wrong? — For my part, I don't see why America had not as 
 good a right to be peopled at first, as any Uttle contemptible 
 country in Europe, or Asia, and I am determined to write a 
 book at my first leisure, to prove that Noah was born here— 
 and that so far is America from being indebted to any other 
 country for inhabitants, that they were every one of them 
 peopled by colonies from her ! — mem. battery a very pleasant 
 place to walk on a Sunday evening — not quite genteel though 
 — evei-ybody walks there, and a pleasure, however genuine, is 
 spoiled by general participation — the fashionable ladies of NewT 
 York tui-n up their noses if you ask them to walk on the bat- 
 tery on Sunday— quore, have they scruples of conscience, oi 
 scruples of delicacy?— neither — they have only scruples of gen- 
 tility, which are quite different things. 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Custom-house— origin of duties on merchandise— this place 
 much frequented by merchants— and why? — different classes 
 of merchants— importers — a kind of nobility — wholesale mer- 
 chants—have the privilege of going to the city assembly!— 
 Eetail traders cannot go to the assembly. — Some curious 
 , speculations on the vast distinction betwixt selhng tape by the 
 piece or by the yard. — "Wholesale merchants look down upon 
 the retailers, who in return look down upon the green-grocers, 
 who look down upon the market women, who don't care a 
 straw about any of them.— Origin of the distinctions of rank 
 —Dr. Johnson once horribly puzzled to settle the point of pre- 
 cedence between a louse and a flea — good hint enough to 
 humble, purse-proud arrogance.— Custom-house partly used as 
 a lodging house for the pictures belonging to the academy of 
 arts— couldn't afford the statues house-i"oom, most of them 
 in the cellar of the City-hall— poor place for the gods and,,, 
 godesses — after 01\n:flpus.— Pensive reflections on the ur>s and 
 
SALMAGUNm. 153 
 
 downs of life— Apollo, and the rest of the set, used to cut a 
 great figure in days of yore.— Mem. every dog has his day — 
 sorry for Venus, though, poor wench, to be cooped up in a 
 cellar with not a single grace to wait on her! — Eulogy on 
 the gentlemen of the academy of arts, for the great spirit 
 with which they began the undertaking, and the perseverance 
 with which they have pursued it. — It is a pity, however, they 
 began at the wrong end — maxim— If you want a bird and a 
 cage, always buy the cage first— hem! a word to the wise? 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 BowuNa-GREEN — fine place for pasturing cows— a perqui- 
 site of the late corporation — formerly ornamented with a 
 statue of George the 3d— people pulled it down in the war to 
 make bullets — great pity, as it might have been given to the 
 academy— it would have become a cellar as well as any other. 
 — Broadway — great difference in the gentUity of streets — a man 
 who resides in Pearl-street or Chatham-row, derives no kind of 
 dignity from his doniicU ; but place him in a certain part of 
 Broadway, anywhere between the battery and Wall-street, and 
 he straightway becomes entitled to figure in the beau monde, 
 and strut as a person of prodigious consequence! — Quere, 
 whether there is a degree of purity in the air of that quarter 
 which changes the gross particles of vulgarity into gems of re- 
 finement and poKsh? — A question to be asked, but not to be 
 answered — ^WaU-street — City-hall, , famous place for catch- 
 poles, deputy-sheriffs, and young lawyers; which last attend 
 the courts, not because they have business there but because 
 they have no business any where else. My blood always cur- 
 dles when I see a catch-pole, they being a species of vermin, 
 who feed and fatten on the common wi-etchedness 0£ mankind, 
 who trade in misery, and in becoming the executioners of the 
 law, by their oppression and villainy, ahnost counterbalance 
 aU the benefits which are derived from its salutary regulations 
 —Story of Quevedo about a catch-pole possessed by a devil, 
 who, on being interrogated, declared that he did not come 
 there voluntarily, but by compulsion; and that a decent devil 
 would never, of his own free will enter into the body of a 
 catch-pole; instead, therefore, of doing him the injustice to 
 say that here was a catch-pole be-deviled, they should say, it 
 was a devU be-catch-poled ; that being in reality the truth— 
 
154 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 Wonder what has become of the old crier of the court, who 
 used to make more noise in preserving silence than the audi- 
 ence did in breaking it — if a man happened to drop his cane, 
 the old hero would sing out ' ' silence !" in a voice that emulated 
 the ' ' wide-mouthed thunder " — On inquiring, found he had re- 
 tired from business to enjoy otium cum dignitate, as many a 
 great man had done before — Strange that wise men, as they 
 are thought, should toil through a whole existence merfely to 
 enjoy a few moments of leisure at last ! — why don't they begin 
 to be easy at first, and not purchase a moment's pleasure with 
 an age of pain?— mem. posed some of the jockeys — ehl 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Barber's pole; three different orders of shavers in New 
 York — those who shave pigs; N. B. — freshmen and sophomores, 
 — those who cut beards, and those who shave notes of hand; the 
 last are the most respectable, because, in the course of a year, 
 they make more money, and that honestly, than the whole 
 corps of other shavers can do in half a century; besides, it 
 would puzzle a common barber to ruin any man, except by 
 cutting his throat ; whereas your higher order of shavers, your 
 true blood-suckers of the community, seated snugly behind the 
 curtain, in watch .for prey, live on the vitals of the unfortu- 
 nate, and grow rich on the ruins of thousands. — ^Tet this last 
 class of barbers are held in high respect in the world; they 
 never offend against the decencies of life, go often to chiu-ch, 
 look down on honest poverty walking on foot, and caU them- 
 selves gentlemen; yea, men of honour! — Lottery. ofl3.ces— 
 another set of capital shavers! — licensed gambling houses! — 
 good things enough though, as they enable a few honest, in- 
 dustrious gentlemen to humbug the people —according to law; 
 —besides, if the people will be such fools, whose fault is it but 
 their own if they get 6ji?— Messrs. Paflf— beg pardon for putting' 
 them in bad company, because they are a couple of fine fellows 
 —mem. to recommend Michael's antique snuff box to all ama- 
 teurs in the arl— Eagle singing Yaixkee-doodle—N. B. — Buffon, 
 Penant, and the rest of the naturahsts, aU naturals not to 
 know the eagle was a singing bird; Linkum Fidelius knew 
 better, and gives a long description of a bald eagle that sere- 
 naded him once in Canada ;— digression ; particular account of 
 the Canadian Indians ;— story about Areskou learning to make 
 fishing nets of a slider — don't believe it though, because, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 155 
 
 according to Linkum, and many other learned authorities, 
 Areskou is the same as Mars, being derived from his Greek 
 names of Ares; and if so, he knew well enough what a net was 
 without consulting a spider ;— story of Arachne being changed 
 into a spider as a reward for having hanged herself; — deri- 
 vation of the word spinster from spider ;— Colophon, now Al- 
 tobosco. the birthplace of Arachne, remarkable for a famous 
 breed of spiders to this day; — mem. — nothing like a little schol- 
 arship — make the ignoramus, viz., the majority of my readers, 
 stare like wild pigeons; — return to New- York a short cut — 
 meet a dashing belle, in a little thick white veil— tried to get a 
 peep at her face— saw she squinted a little — thought so at first; 
 —never saw a face covered with a veil that was worth looking 
 at; — saw some ladies holding a conversation across the street 
 about going to church next Sunday — talked so loud they 
 frightened a cartman's horse, who ran away, and overset a 
 basket of gingerbread with a little boy under it;— mem.— I 
 don't much see the use of speaking-trumpets now-a-days. 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Bought a pair of gloves; dry -good stores the genuine schools 
 of politeness — true Parisian manners there— got a pair of 
 gloves and a pistareen's worth of bows for a dollar— dog cheap ! 
 — Courtlandt-street comer — famous place to see the beUes go by 
 — quere, ever been shopping with a lady? — some account of it — 
 ladies go into aU the shops in the city to buy a pair of gloves — 
 good way of spending time, if they have nothing else to do.^ 
 Oswego-market — looks very much Mke a triiimphal arch— some 
 account of the manner of erecting them in ancient times ;— di- 
 gression to the arch-duke Charles, and some account of the 
 ancient G-ermans.— N. B. — quote Tacitus on this subject.— Par- 
 ticular description of market-baskets, butcher's blocks, and 
 wheelbarrows;— mem. queer things run upon one wheel!— Saw 
 a cart-man driving fuU-tUt through Broadway— ran over a 
 child— good enough for it — what business had it to be in the 
 way?- Hint concerning the laws against pigs, goats, dogs, and 
 cartmen— grand apostrophe to the subUme science of jurispru- 
 dence ;— comparison between legislators and tinkers; quere, 
 whether it requires greater ability to mend a law than to mend 
 a kettle? — ^inquiry into the utility of making laws that are 
 broken a hundred times a day with impunity ;— my lord Coke's 
 opinion on the subject;— my lord a very great man— so was 
 
156 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 lord Bacon: good story about a criminal named Hog claiming 
 relationship with him. — Hogg's porter-house ; — great haunt of 
 WiU Wizard ; WiU put down there one night by a sea-captain, 
 in an argument concerning the era of the Chinese empire 
 Whangpo ; — Hogg's capital place for hearing the same stories, 
 the same jokes, and the same songs every night in the year — 
 mem. except Sunday nights ; fine school for young politicians 
 too — some of the longest and thickest heads in the city come 
 there to settle the nation. — Scheme of Ichabod Fungus to 
 restore the balance of Europe ;— digression ; — some account of 
 the balance of Europe ; comparison between it and a 'pair of 
 scales, with the Emperor Alexander in one and the Emperor 
 Napoleon in the other : fine fellows — both of a weight, can't tell 
 which will kick the beam: — m.em. don't care much either — 
 nothing to me : — Ichabod very unhappy about it — ^thinks Na- 
 poleon has an eye on this coimtry — capital place to pasture his 
 horses, and provide for the rest of his family:— Dey-street— 
 ancient Dutch name of it, signifying murderers' valley, for- 
 merly the site of a great peach orchard; my grandmother's 
 history of the famous Peach luai — arose from an Indian steal- 
 ing peaches out of this orchard ; good cause as need be for a 
 war ; just as good as the balance of power. Anecdote of a war 
 between two Italian states about a bucket; introduce some 
 capital new truisms about the folly of mankind, the ambition 
 of kings, potentates, and princes; particularly Alexander, 
 Caesar, Charles the Xllth, Napoleon, little King Pepin, and the 
 great Charlemagne. — Conclude with an exhortation to the 
 present race of sovereigns to keep the king's peace and abstain 
 from all those deadly quarrels which produce battle, murder, 
 and sudden death : mem. ran my nose against a lamp-post — 
 conclude in great dudgeon. 
 
 FEOM MY BLBOW-CHAIK. 
 
 OuK cousin Pindar, after having been confined for some 
 time past with a fit of the gout, which is a kind of keepsake in 
 our family, has again set his miU going, as my readers will 
 perceive. On reading his piece I could not help smiling at the 
 high compliments which, contrary to his usual style, he has 
 lavished on the dear sex. The old gentleman, unfortunately 
 
SALMA O UNDI. 157 
 
 observing my merriment, stumped out of the room with great 
 vociferation of crutch, and has not exchanged three words 
 with me since. I expect every hour to hear that he has 
 packed up his m.ovables, and, as usual in all cases of disgust, 
 retreated to his old country house. 
 
 Pindar, like most of the old Cockloft heroes, is wonderfully 
 susceptible to the genial influence of warm weather. In 
 winter he is one of the most crusty old bachelors under 
 heaven, and is wickedly addicted to sarcastic reflections of 
 every kind ; particularly on the Httle enchanting foibles and 
 whim- whams of women. But when the spring comes On, and 
 the mild influence of the sun releases nature from her icy 
 fetters, the ice of his bosom dissolves into a gentle current 
 which.reflects the bewitching quahties of the tafr ; as in some 
 mild clear evening, when nature reposes in silence, the stream 
 bears in its pure bosom all the starry magnificence of heaven. 
 It is under the control of this influence he has written his 
 piece ; and I beg the ladies, in the plenitude of their harmless 
 conceit, not to flatter themselves that because the good Pindar 
 has suffered them to escape his censures he had nothing more 
 to censure. It is but stmshine and zephyrs which have 
 wrought this wonderful change ; and I am much mistaken if 
 the first north-easter don't convert aU his good nature into 
 most exquisite spleen. 
 
 FEOM THE MILL OF PINDAE COCKLOFT, ESQ. 
 
 How often I cast my reflections behind, 
 And call up the days of past youth to my mind, 
 When foUy assails in habiliments new. 
 When fashion obtrudes some fresh whim-wham to view; 
 When the f opMngs of fashion bedazzle my sight. 
 Bewilder my feehngs— my senses benight; 
 I retreat in disgust from the world of to-day. 
 To commune with the world that has moulder'd away; 
 To converse with the shades of those friends of my love, 
 Long gather'd in peace to the angels above. 
 
 In my rambles through hfe should I meet with annoy, 
 From the bold beardless stripling— the turbid pert boy, 
 One rear'd in the mode lately reckon'd genteel, 
 Which neglecting the head, aims to perfect the heel; 
 
158 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 Which completes the sweet f opling while yet in his teens, 
 And fits him for fashion's light changeable scenes ; 
 Proclaims him a man to the near and the far, 
 Can he dance a cotillion or smoke a segar ; 
 And though brainless and vapid as vapid can be, 
 To routs and to parties pronounces him free : — 
 Oh, I think on the beaux that existed of yore, 
 On those rules of the ton that exist now no more ! 
 
 I recall with delight how each yonker at first 
 In the cradle of science and virtue was nursed: 
 — How the graces of person and graces of mind, 
 The polish of learning and fashion combined, 
 TUl softened in manners and strengthened in head, 
 By the classical lore of the hving and dead. 
 Matured in his person tiU manly in size, 
 He then was presented a beau to our eyes ! 
 
 My nieces of late have made frequent complaint 
 That they sufEer vexation and painful constraint 
 By having their circles too often distrest 
 By some three or four goslings just fledged from the toest, 
 Who, propp'd by the credit their fathers sustain. 
 Alike tender in years and in person and brain. 
 But plenteously stock'd with that substitute, brass, 
 For true wits and critics would anxiously pass. 
 They complain of that empty sarcastical slang. 
 So common to aU the coxcombical gang. 
 Who the fair with their shallow experience vex. 
 By thrumming for ever their weakness of sex ; 
 And who boast of themselves, when they talk with proud air 
 Of Man's mental ascendancy over the fair. 
 
 'Twas thus the young owlet produced in the nest. 
 Where the eagle of Jove her young eaglets had prest, 
 Pretended to boast of his royal descent. 
 And vaunted that force which to eagles is lent. 
 Though fated to shun with his dim visual ray. 
 The cheering delights and the brilliance of day; 
 To forsake the fair regions of sether and light. 
 For dull moping caverns of darkness and night: 
 StiU talk'd of that eagle-like strength of the eye, 
 Which approaches unwinking the pride of the sky, 
 Of that wing which unwearied can hover and play 
 In the noon-tide effulgence and torrent of day. 
 
iSALMA G UNDI. 159 
 
 Dear girls, the sad evils of which ye complain, 
 Tour sex must endure from the feeble and vain, 
 'Tis the commonplace jest of the nursery scape-goat, 
 'Tis the commonplace ballad that croaks from his throat ; 
 He knows not that nature— that pohsh decrees. 
 That women should always endeavour to please. 
 That the law of their system has early imprest 
 The importance of fitting themselves to each guest ; 
 And, of course, that full oft when ye trifle and play, 
 'Tis to gratify triflers who strut in your way. 
 The child might as well of its mother complain. 
 As wanting true wisdom and soundness of brain: 
 Because that, at times, while it hangs on her breast, 
 She with " luUa-by-baby" beguiles it to rest. 
 'Tis its weakness of mind that induces the strain, 
 For wisdom to infants is prattled in vain. 
 
 'Tis true at odd times, when in frolicsome fit, 
 In the midst of his gambols, the mischievous wit 
 May start some Ught foible that clings to the fair 
 like cobwebs that fasten to objects most rare, — 
 In the play of his fancy will sportively say 
 Some deMcate censure that pops in his way. 
 He may smile at your fashions, and frankly express 
 His disUke of a dance, or a flaming red dress ; 
 Yet he blames not your want of man's physical force, 
 Nor complains though ye cannot in Latin discourse. 
 He dehghts in the language of nature ye speak. 
 Though not so refined as true classical Greek. 
 He remembers that Providence never design'd 
 Our females hke suns to bewilder and blind; 
 But like the mild orb of pale ev'ning serene. 
 Whose radiance illumines, yet softens the scene. 
 To hght us with cheering and welcoming ray. 
 Along the rude path when the sun is away. 
 
 I own in my scribblings I lately have nam'd 
 Some faults of our fair which I gently have blam'd, 
 But be it for ever by all understood 
 My censures were only pronounc'd for their good. 
 I delight in the sex, 'tis the pride of my mind 
 To consider them gentle, endearing, refln'd ; 
 As our solace below in the journey of life, 
 To smooth its rough passes;— to soften its strife: 
 
160 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 As objects intended our joys to supply, 
 And to lead us in love to the temples on high. 
 How oft have 1 feV-; when two lucid blue eyes, 
 As calm and as bright as the gems of the skies, 
 Have beam'd their soft radiance into my soul, 
 Impress'd with an awe hke an angel's control ! 
 
 Yes, fair ones, by this is for ever defin'd 
 The fop from the man of refinement and mind ; 
 The latter believes ye in bounty were given 
 As a bond upon earth of our union with heaven: 
 And if ye are weak, and are fraU, in his view, 
 'Tis to call forth fresh warmth and his fondness renew. 
 'Tis his joy to support these defects of your frame, 
 And his love at your weakness redoubles its flame: 
 He rejoices the gem is so rich and so fair. 
 And is proud that it claims his protection and care. 
 
SALMAGUHDI. 161 
 
 NO. XIII.-FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1807. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIE. 
 
 I WAS not a little perplexed, a short time since, by the eccen- 
 tric conduct of my knowing coadjutor, Will Wiuard. For 
 two or three days, he was completely in a quandary. He 
 would come into old Cockloft's parlour ten times a day, swing" 
 ing his ponderous legs along with his usual vast strides, clap 
 his hands into his sides, contemplate the little shepherdesses 
 on the mantel-piece for a few minutes, whistling all the while, 
 and then sally out full sweep, without uttering a word. To be 
 sure, a pish or a pshaw occasionally escaped him; and he was 
 observed once to pull out his enormous tobacco-box, drum f<?r 
 a moment upon its Hd with his knuckles, and then return it 
 into his pocket without taking a quid:— 'twas evident Will 
 was full of some mighty idea:— not that his restlessness was 
 any way unconunon ; for I have often seen Will throw himself 
 almost into a fever of heat and fatigue— doing nothing. But 
 his inflexible taciturnity set the whole family, as nsual a won- 
 dering: as Will seldom enters the house without giving one of 
 his "one thousand and one" stories. For my part, I began to 
 think that the late fracas at Canton had alarmed Will for the 
 safety of his friends Kinglun, Chinqua, and Consequa; or, 
 that something had gone wrong in the alterations of the thea- 
 tre—or that some new outrage at Norfolk had put him in a 
 orry; in short, I did not know what to think; for Will is 
 such an universal busy-body, and meddles so much in every 
 thing going forward, that you might as well attempt to con- 
 jecture what is going on in the north star, as in his precious 
 pericranimn. Even Mrs. Cockloft, who, like a worthy woman 
 as she is, seldom troubles herself about any thing in this world 
 — saving the affairs of her household, and the correct deport- 
 ment of her female friends — was struck with the mystery of 
 
162 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 Will's behaviour. She happened, when he came in and went 
 out the tenth time, to be busy darning the bottom of one of 
 the old red damask chairs; and notwithstanding this is to her 
 an affair of vast importance, yet she could not help turning 
 round and exclaiming, ' ' I wonder what can be the matter with 
 Mr. Wizard ?" " Nothing," rephed old Christopher, " only we 
 -hall have an eruption soon." The old lady did not under- 
 hand a word of this, neither did she care ; she had expressed 
 iior wonder ; and that, with her, is always sufficient. 
 
 I am so weU acquainted with Will's peculiarities that I can 
 tell, even by his whistle, when he is about an essay for our 
 paper as certainly as a weather wiseacre knows that it is going 
 to rain when he sees a pig run squeaking about with his nose 
 in the wind. I, therefore, laid my account with receiving a 
 communication from him before long^ and sure enough, the 
 evening before last I distinguished his free-mason knock at 
 my door. I have seen many wise men in my time, phUoso- 
 phers, mathematicians, astronomers, poUticians, editors and 
 ahnanac makers ; but never did I see a man look haK so wise 
 as did my friend Wizard on entering the room. Had Lavater 
 beheld him at that moment he woidd have set him down, to a 
 certainty, as a f eUow who had just discovered the longitude or 
 the philosopher's stone. 
 
 Without saying a word, he handed me a roll of paper; after 
 which he lighted his segar, sat down, crossed his legs, folded 
 his arms, and elevating his nose to an angle of about forty-five 
 degrees, began to smoke like a steam engine ; — Will delights in 
 the picturesque. On opening his budget, and perceiving the 
 motto, it struck me that Will had brought me one of his con- 
 founded Chinese manuscripts, and I was forthwith going to 
 dismiss it with indignation ; but accidentally seeing the name 
 of our oracle, the sage Linkum, of whose inestimable folios we 
 pride ourselves upon being the sole possessors, I began to think 
 the better of it, and looked round to Will to express my appro- 
 bation. I shall never forget the figure he cut at that moment ! 
 He had watched my countenance, on opening his manuscript, 
 with the argus eyes of an author : and perceiving some tokens 
 of disapprobation, began, according to custom, to puff away 
 at his segar with such vigour that in a few minutes he had en- 
 tirely involved himself in smoke: except his nose and one foot, 
 which were just visible, the latter wagging with great velocity. 
 I beheve I have hinted before— at least I ought to have done 
 so— that Will's nose is a very goodly nose; to which it may be 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 163 
 
 as well to add, that in Ms voyages under the tropics, it has ac- 
 quired a copper complexion, which renders it very brUliant 
 and luminous. You may imagine what a sumptuous appear- 
 ance it made, projecting boldly, like the celebrated promonto- 
 rium nasidium at Samos with a light-house upon it, and sur- 
 rounded on all sides with smoke and vapour. Had my gravity 
 been like the Chinese philosopher's "within one degree of ab- 
 solute frigidity," here would have been a trial for it.— I could 
 not stand it, but burst into such a laugh as I do not indulge in 
 above once in a hundred years ; — ^this was too much for Will ; 
 he emerged from his cloud, threw his segar into the fire-place, 
 and strode out of the room, pulling up his breeches, muttering 
 something which, I verily beMeve, was nothing more than a 
 horrible long Chinese malediction. 
 
 He, however, left his manuscript behind him, which I now 
 give to the world. Whether he is serious on the occasion, or 
 only bantering, no one, I beheve, can tell: for, whether in 
 spealdng or writing, there is such an invincible gravity in his 
 demeanour and style, that feven I, who have studied him as 
 closely as an antiquarian studies an old manuscript or inscrip- 
 tion, am frequently at a loss to know what the rogue would be 
 at. I have seen hird indulge in his favourite amusement of 
 quizzing for hours together, without any one having the least 
 suspicion of the matter, until he woTold suddenly twist his phiz 
 into an expression that baffles all description, thrust his tongue 
 in his cheek and blow up in a laugh almost as loud as the shout 
 of the Eomans on a certain occasion ; which honest Plutarch 
 avers frightened several crows to such a degree that they fell 
 down stone dead into the Campus Martins. Jeremy Cockloft 
 the younger, who like a true modem philosopher delights in 
 experiments that are of no kind of use, took the trouble to 
 measure one of Will's risible explosions, and declared to mo 
 that, according to accurate measurement, it contained thirty 
 feet square of solid laughter:— what will the professors say to 
 this? 
 
164 iSALMAG UjSDL 
 
 PLANS FOR DEFENDING OUR HARBOUR. 
 
 BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 LonR-fong teko buzz tor-pe-do, 
 
 Fudge —Oo^ifuciua. 
 
 We'll blow the villains all sky high; 
 
 But do it with econo my. — Link, FicL 
 
 Surely never was a town more subject to mid-summer fan- 
 cies and dog-day whim-whams, than this most excellent of 
 cities ;— our notions, like our diseases, seem all epidemic; and 
 no sooner does a new disorder or a new freak seize one individ- 
 ual but it is sure to run through aU the community. This is 
 particularly the case when the summer is at the hottest, and 
 every body's head is in a vertigo and his brain in a ferment; 
 'tis absolutely necessary then the poor souls should have some 
 bubble to amuse themselves with, or they would certainly run 
 mad. Last year the poplar worm made its appearance most 
 fortunately for our citizens ; and every body was so much in 
 horror of being poisoned, and devoured ; and so busied in mak- 
 ing humane experiments on cats and dogs, that we got through 
 the summer quite comfortably; — the cats had the worst of it; 
 — every mouser of them was shaved, and there was not a 
 whisker to be seen in the whole sisterhood. This summer 
 every body has had full employment in planning fortifications 
 for our harbour. Not a cobbler or tailor in the city but has 
 left his awl and his thimble, become an engineer outright, and 
 aspired most magnanimously to the building of forts and de- 
 struction of navies !— heavens ! as my friend Mustapha would 
 say, on what a great scale is every thing ta this country ! 
 
 Among the various plans that have been offered, the most 
 conspicuous is one devised and exhibited, as I am informed, by 
 that notable confederacy, the North River Society. 
 
 Anxious to redeem their reputation from the foul suspicions 
 that have for a long time overclouded it, these aquatic incendi- 
 aries have come forward, at the present alarming juncture, 
 and announced a most potent discovery which is to guarantee 
 our port from the visits of any foreign marauders. The society 
 have, it seems, invented a cunning machine, shrewdly yclep'd 
 a Torpedo; by which the stoutest Une of battle ship, even n, 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 165 
 
 Santissima Trinidada, may bo caught napping and decomposed 
 in a twinkling; a kind of sub-marine powder-magaziae to 
 swim under water, like an aquatic mole, or water rat, and de- 
 stroy the enemy in the moments of unsuspicious security. 
 
 This straw tickled the noses of all our dignitaries wonder- 
 fully ; for to do our government justice, it has no objection to 
 injuring and exterminating its enemies in any manner— pro- 
 vided the thing can be done economically. . 
 
 It was determined the experiment should be tried, and an 
 old brig was purchased, for not more than twice its value, and 
 delivered over into the hands of its tormentors, the North 
 Eiver Society, to be tortiu-ed, and battered, and annihilated, 
 secundum artem. A day was appointed for the occasion, when 
 all the good citizens of the wonder-loving city of Gotham were 
 invited to the blowing up ; like the fat inn-keeper in Rabelais, 
 who requested all his customers to come on a certain day and 
 see him burst. 
 
 As I have almost as ^eat a veneration as the good Mr. Wal- 
 ter Shandy for aJl kinds of experiments that are ingeniously 
 ridiculous, I made very particular mention of the one in ques- 
 tion, at the table of my friend Christopher Cockloft; but it put 
 the honest old gentleman in a violent passion. He condemned it 
 in toto, as an attempt to introduce a dastardly and exterminating 
 mode of warfare. "Already have we proceeded far enough," 
 said he, "in the science of destruction ; war is already invested 
 with sufficient horrors and calamities, let us not increase the 
 catalogue ; let us not by these deadly artifices provoke a sys- 
 tem of- insidious and indiscriminate hostility, that shall termin- 
 ate in laying our cities desolate, and exposing our women, our 
 children, and our infirm to the sword of pitiless recrimination. " 
 Honest old cavalier !— it was evident he did not reason as a true 
 ^)ohtician, — but he felt as a Christian and philanthropist; and 
 that was, perhaps, just as well. 
 
 It may be readily supposed, that our citizens did not refuse 
 the invitation of the society to the blow-up ; it was the first 
 naval action ever exhibited in our port, and the good people all 
 crowded to see the British navy blown up in effigy. The young 
 ladies were delighted with the novelty of the show, and de- 
 clared that if war could be conducted in this manner, it would 
 become a fashionable amusement; and the destruction of a 
 fleet be as pleasant as a ball or a tea-party. The old folk were 
 equally pleased with the spectacle, — ^because it cost them noth- 
 ing. Dear souls, how hajd was it they should be disappointed ! 
 
166 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 the brig most obstinately refused to be decomposed ; the din- 
 ners grew cold, and the puddings were over-boUed, throughout 
 the renovsTied city of Gotham: and its sapient inhabitants, like 
 the honest Strasburghers, from whom most of them are doubt- 
 less descended, who went out to see the courteous stranger and 
 his nose, aU returned home after having threatened to pull 
 down the flag-staff by way of taking satisfaction for thoir dis- 
 appointment. By the way, their is not an animal iu the world 
 more discriminating in its vengeance than a free-bom mob. 
 
 In the evening I repaired to friend Hogg's to smoke a socia- 
 ble segar, but had scarcely entered the room when I was taken 
 prisoner by my friend, Mr. Ichabod Fungus ; who, I soon saw 
 was at his usual trade of prying into mill-stones. The old gen- 
 tleman informed me, that the brig had actually blown up, 
 after a world of manoeuvring, and had nearly blown up the 
 society with it ; he seemed to entertain strong doubts as to the 
 objects of the society in the invention of these infernal ma- 
 chines ; — hinted a suspicion of their wishing to set the river on 
 fire, and that he should not be surprised on waking one of 
 these mornings to find the Hudson iu a blaze. "Not that I 
 disapprove of the plan," said he, "provided it has the end in 
 view which they profess; no, no, an excellent plan of defence; 
 — no need of batteries, forts, frigates, and gun-boats; observe, 
 sir, aU that's necessary is that the ships must come to anchor 
 in a convenient place ; — watch must be asleep, or so compla- 
 cent as not to disturb any boats paddling about them— fair 
 wind and tide— no moonlight— machines well-directed— musn't 
 flash in the plan— bang's the word, and the vessel's blown up 
 in a moment !" ' ' Good, " said I, ' ' you remind me of a lubberly 
 Chinese who was flogged by an honest captain of my acquaint- 
 ance, and who, on being advised to retaliate, exclaimed — 'Hi 
 yah ! s'pose two men hold fast him captain, den very mush me 
 bamboo he !' " 
 
 The old gentleman grew a little crusty, and insisted that I 
 did not understand him ;— all that was requisite to render the 
 effect certain was, that the enemy should enter into the pro- 
 ject; or, in other words, be agreeable to the measure; so that 
 if the machine did not come to the ship, the ship should go to 
 the machine ; by which means he thought the success of the 
 machine would be inevitable — provided it struck fire. "But 
 do not you think," said I, doubtingly, "that it would be rather 
 diificult to persuade the enemy into such an agreement? — Some 
 people have an invincible antipathy to being blown up." " Not 
 
SALMA O UNDI. 167 ' 
 
 at all, not at aH" replied he, triumphantly; "got an excellent 
 notion for that;— do with them as we have done with the brig; 
 buy all the vessels we mean to destroy, and blow 'em up as 
 best suits our convenience. I have thought deeply on that 
 subject and have calculated to a certainty, that i£ our frnids 
 hold out we may in this way destroy the whole British navy^ 
 by contract." 
 
 By this time all the quidnuncs of the room had gathered 
 aroimd us, each pregnant with some mighty .scheme for the sal- 
 vation of his country. — One pathetically lamented that we had 
 no such men among us as the famous Toujoursdort and Grossi- 
 tout; who, when the celebrated captain Tranchemont made 
 war against the city of Kalacahabalaba, utterly discomfited 
 the great king Bigstafl, and blew up his whole army by sneez- 
 ing. — ^Another imparted a sage idea, which seems to have oc- 
 cupied more heads than one; that is, that the best way of 
 fortifying the haxbour was to ruin it at once ; choke the chan- 
 nel with rocks and blocks ; strew it with chevaux-de-frises and 
 torpedoes ; and make it.Uke a nursery-garden, fuU of men-traps 
 and spring-guns. No vessel would then have the temerity to 
 enter our harbour; we should not even dare to navigate it pur' 
 selves. Or if no cheaper way could be devised, let Oovemor'a 
 Island be raised by levers and pulleys — floated with empty 
 casks, &c., towed down to the Narrows, and dropped plump 
 in the very mouth of the harbour 1 — "But," said I, "would 
 not the prosecution of these whim-whams be rather expensive 
 and dilatory?" " Pshaw !" cried the other— "what's a mil- 
 lion of money to an experiment ; the true spirit of our economy 
 requires that we should spare no expense in discovering the 
 cheapest mode of defending ourselves; and then if aU these 
 modes should fail, why, you know the worst we have to do is 
 to return to the old-fashioned hum-drum mode of forts and 
 batteries." "By which time," cried I, "the arrival of the 
 enemy may have rendered their erection superfluous." 
 
 A shrewd old gentleman, who stood Ustening by, with a mis- 
 chievously equivocal look, observed that the most effectual 
 mode of repulsing a fleet from our ports would be to admin- 
 ister them a proclamation from time to time, tfll it operated. 
 
 UnwilHng to leave the company without demonstrating my 
 patriotism and ingenuity, I communicated a plan of defence; 
 which, in truth, was suggested long since by that infalhble 
 oracleMusTArHA, who had as clear a head for cobweb-weaving 
 as ever dignified the shoulders of a projector. He thought the 
 
1 68 SALMA O UNDI. 
 
 most effectual mode "would be to assemble all the slang-wTiang- 
 ers, great and small, from, all parts of the stete, and marshal 
 them at the battery; where they should be exposed, point 
 blank, to the enemy, and form a tremendous body of scolding 
 infantry; similar to the poissards or doughty champions of 
 Billingsgate. They should be exhorted to fire away, without 
 pity or remorse, in sheets, half -sheets, columns, hand-bills, or 
 squibs ; great canon, little canon, pica, german-text, stereotype, 
 and to run their enemies through and through with sharp- 
 pointed italics. They should have orders to show no quarter- 
 to blaze away in their loadest epithets " miscreants!" " mur- 
 
 derersr ^^ barbarians!" ^'pirates!" ^^ robbers!" " Blackguards 1" 
 and to do away all fear of consequences, they should be guar- 
 anteed from all dangers of pillory, kicking, cuffing, nose-puU- 
 ing, whipping-post, or prosecution for hbels. If, continued 
 Mustapha, you wish men to fight well and valiantly, they 
 must be allowed those weapons they have been used to handle. 
 Your countrymen are notoriously adroit in the management of 
 the tongue and the pen, and conduct all their battles by 
 speeches or newspapers. Adopt, therefore, the plan I have 
 pointed out; and rely upon it .that let any fleet, however large, 
 be but once assailed by this battery of slang- whangers, and if 
 they have not entirely lost the sense of hearing, or a regard 
 for their own characters and feeUngs, they wIU, at the very 
 first fire, slip their cables and retreat with as much precipitar 
 tion as if they had im warily entered into the atmosphere of 
 the Bohan upas. In this manner may your wars be conducted 
 with proper economy; and it wiU cost no more to drive off a 
 fleet than to write up a party, or write down a bashaw with 
 three tails. 
 
 The sly old gentleman, I have before mentioned, was highly 
 delighted with this plan;. and proposed, as an improvement, 
 that mortars should be placed on the battery, which, instead 
 of throwing shells and such trifles, might be charged with 
 newspapers, Tammany addresses, etc., by way of red-hot shot, 
 which would undoubtedly be very potent in blowing up any 
 powder-magazine they might chance to come in contact with. 
 He concluded by informing the company, that in the course of 
 a few evenings he would have the honour to present them with 
 a scheme for loading certain vessels with newspapers, resolu- 
 tions of "numerous and respectable meetings," and other com- 
 bustibles, which vessels were to be blown directly in the midst 
 of the enemy by the bellows of the slang- whangci-s ; r)"d he 
 
SALMA G VNBL 1 69 
 
 was much roistaken if they -would not be more fatal than fire- 
 ships, bomb-ketches, gun-boats, or even torpedoes. 
 
 These are but two or three specimens of the nature and effi- 
 cacy of the innumerable plans with which this city abounds. 
 Every body seems charged to the muzzle with gunpowder, — 
 every eye flashes fireworks and torpedoes, and every corner is 
 occupied by knots of inflammatory projectors; not one of 
 whom but has some preposterous mode of destruction which 
 he has proved to be iofaUible by a previous experiment in a 
 tub of water ! 
 
 Even Jeremy Cockloft has caught the infection, to the great 
 annoyance of the inhabitants of Cockloft-haU, whither he re- 
 tired to make his experiments undisturbed. At one time aU 
 the mirrors in the house were unhung, —their collected rays 
 thrown into the hot-house, to try Archimedes' plan of burning 
 glasses ; and the honest old gardener was almost knocked down 
 by what he mistook for a stroke of the sun, but which turned 
 out to be nothing more than a sudden attack of one of these 
 tremendous jack-o'-lanterns. It became dangerous to walk 
 through the court-yard for fear of an explosion ; and the whole 
 family was thrown into absolute distress and consternation by 
 a letter from the old housekeeper to Mrs. Cockloft ; informing 
 her of his having blown up a favourite Chinese gander, which 
 I had brought from Canton, as he was majestically sailing in 
 the duck-pond. 
 
 "In the multitude of counsellors there is safety ;"— if so, the 
 defenceless city of Gf^otham has nothing to apprehend ;— but 
 much do I fear that so many excellent and infalhble projects 
 will be presented, that we shall be at a loss which to adopt ; and 
 the peaceable inhabitants fare lilie a famous projector of my 
 acquaintance, whose house was imf ortunately plundered while 
 'he was contriving a patent look to secure his door. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIE. 
 
 A EETEOSPECT; OR, "WHAT YOU WILL." 
 
 Lolling in my oibow-chair this fine summer noon, I feel 
 myself insensibly yielding to that genial feeling of indolence 
 the season is so weU fitted to inspii e. Every one who is blessed 
 
170 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 with a little of the delicious languor of disposition that delights 
 in repose, must often have sported among the fairy scenes, the 
 golden visions, the voluptuous reveries, that swim before the 
 imagination at such moments, and which so much resemble 
 those bhssful sensations a Mussulman enjoys after his favourite 
 indulgence of opiimi, which Will Wizard declares can be com- 
 pared to nothing but "swimming in an ocean of peacocks' 
 feathers. In such a mood, every body must be insensible it 
 would be idle and unprofitable for a man to send his wits a-gad ■ 
 ding on a voyage of discovery into futurity ; or even to trouble 
 himself with a laborious investigation of what is actually pass- 
 ing under his eye. We are at such times more disposed to re- 
 sort to the pleasures of memory than to those of the imagina- 
 tion; and, like the wayfaring traveller, reclining for a moment 
 on his staff, had rather contemplate the ground we have 
 travelled, than the region which is yet before us. 
 
 I could here amuse myseK and stultify my readers with a 
 most elaborate and ingenious parallel between authors and 
 travellers; but in this balmy season which makes men stupid 
 and dogs mad, and when doubtless many of our most strenuous 
 admirers have great difficulty in keeping awake through the 
 day, it would be cruel to saddle them with the formidable diflB- 
 culty of putting two ideas together and drawing a conclusion ; 
 or in the learned phrase, forging syllogisms in Baroco: — a 
 terrible undertaking for the dog days ! to say the truth, my 
 observations were only intended to prove that this, of all 
 others, is the most auspicious moment, and my present, the 
 most favourable mood for indulging in a restrospect. Whether, 
 like certain great personages of the day, in attempting to 
 prove one thing, I have exposed another ; or whether, Mke cer- 
 tain other great personages, in attempting to prove a great 
 deal, I have proved nothing at all, I leave to my readers to 
 decide; provided they have the power and inclination so to do; 
 but a RETEOSPBCT wiU I take notwithstanding. 
 
 I am perfectly aware that in doing this I shall lay myself 
 open to the charge of imitation, than which a man might be 
 better accused of downright house-breaking ; for it has been a 
 standing rule with many of my illustrious predecessors, occa- 
 sionally, and particularly at the conclusion of a volume, to look 
 over their shoulder and chuckle at the miracles they had 
 achieved. But as I before professed, I am determined to hold 
 myself entirely independent of all manner of opinions and 
 criticisms as the only method of getting on in this world in any 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 171 
 
 thing like a straight line. True it is, I may sometimes seem to 
 angle a little for the good opinion of mankind by giving them 
 some excellent reasons for doing unreasonable things; but this 
 is merely to show them, that although I may occasionally go 
 ■wrong, it is not for want of knowing how to go right ; and here 
 I will lay down a maxim, which will for ever entitle me to the 
 gratitude of my inexperienced readers, namely, that a man 
 always gets more credit in the eyes of this naughty world for 
 sinning wilfully, than for sinning through sheer ignorance. 
 
 It will doubtless be insisted by many ingenious cavillers, 
 who will be meddling with what does not at all concern them, 
 that this retrospect should have been taken at the commence- 
 ment of our second volume ; it is usual, I know : moreover, it is 
 natural. So soon as a writer has once accompUshed a volume, 
 he forthwith becomes wonderfully increased in altitude ! he steps 
 upon his book as upon a pedestal, and is elevated in proportion 
 to its magnitude. A duodecimo makes him one inch taller ; an 
 octavo, three inches, a quarto, six: — but he who has made out 
 to swell a folio, looks down upon his feUow-creatures from such 
 a fearful height that, ten to one, the poor man's head is turned 
 for ever afterwards. From such a lofty situation, therefore, it 
 is natural an author should cast his eyes behind ; and having 
 reached the first landing place on the stairs of immortality, 
 may reasonably be allowed to plead his privilege to look back 
 over the height he has ascended. I have deviated a little from 
 this venerable custom, merely that our retrospect might fall 
 in the dog days — of all days in the year most congenial to the 
 indulgence of a little self-sufficiency ; inasmuch as people have 
 then Uttle to do but to retire within the sphere of self, and make 
 the most of what they find there. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, however, that we think ourselves a 
 whit the wiser or better since we have finished our volume 
 than we were before ; on the contrary, we seriously assure our 
 readers that we were fully possessed of aU the wisdom and 
 morality it contains at the moment, we commenced writing. 
 It is the world which has grown wiser^— not us ; we have thrown 
 our mite into the common stock of knowledge, we have shared 
 our morsel with the ignorant multitude ; and so far from ele- 
 vating ourselves above the world, our sole endeavor has been 
 to raise the world to our own level, and make it as wise as we, 
 its disinterested benefactors. 
 
 To a moral writer like myself, who, next to his own comfort 
 iiand entertainment, has the good of Jds leUow-citizens at heart. 
 
172 'S'^ LMA G U2fD:, 
 
 a retrospect is but a sorry amusement. Like the industrious 
 husbandman, he often contemplates ia silent disappointment 
 his labours wasted on a barren soil, or the seeds he has carefully 
 sown, choked by a redundancy of worthless weeds. I expected 
 long ere this to have seen a complete reformation in manner 
 and morals, achieved by our united efforts. My fancy echoed to 
 the applauding voices of a retrieved generation ; I anticipated, 
 with proud satisfaction, the period, not far distant, when our 
 work would be introduced into the academies with which every 
 lane and alley of our cities abounds ; when our precepts would 
 be gently inducted into every unlucky urchin by force of 
 birch, and my iron-bound physiogomy, as taken by Will Wiz- 
 ard, be as notorious as that of Noah Webster, junr. Esq., or 
 his no less renowned predecessor, the illustrious Dilworth, of 
 spelling-book immortality. But, well-a-day ! to let my readers 
 into a profound secret — the expectations of man are like the 
 varied hues that tinge the distant prospect ; never to be realized, 
 never to be enjoyed but in perspective. Luckless Launcelot, 
 that the humblest of the many air castles thou hast erected 
 should prove a "baseless fabric!" Much does it grieve me to 
 confess, that after all our lectures, and excellent admonitions, 
 the people of New-Toek are nearly as much given to back- 
 sliding and Hi-nature as ever; they are just as much abandoned 
 to dancing, and tea-drinking; and as to scandal. Will Wizard 
 informs me that, by a rough computation, since the last cargo 
 of gunpowder-tea from Canton, no less than eighteen characters 
 have been blown up, besides a number of others that have been 
 wofully shattered. 
 
 The ladies still labour under the same scarcity of muslins, 
 and delight in flesh-coloured silk stockings ; it is evident, how- 
 ever, that our advice has had very considerable effect on them, 
 as they endeavour to act as opposite to it as possible; tliis 
 being what Evergreen calls female independence. As to the 
 Straddles, they abound as much as ever in Broadway, partic- 
 ularly on Sundays ; and Wizzard roundly asserts' that he 
 supped in company with a knot of them a few evenings since, 
 when they liquidated a whole Birmingham consignment, in a 
 batch of imperial champaign. I have, furthenliore, in the 
 course of a month past, detected no less than three Giblet 
 families making their first onset towards style and gentility in 
 the very manner we have heretofore reprobated. Nor have 
 our utmost efforts been able to check the progress of that 
 alarming epidemic, the rage for punning, which, though 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 173 
 
 doubtless originally intended merely to ornament and enliven 
 conversation by little sports of fancy, threatens to overrun and 
 poison the whole, like the baneful ivy which destroys the use- 
 ful plant it first embellished. Now I look upon an habitual 
 punster as a depredator upon conversation; and I have 
 ■^marked sometimes one of these offenders, sitting silent on 
 uhe watch for an hovu- together until some luckless wight, un- 
 fortunately for the ease and quiet of the company, dropped a 
 
 phrase susceptible of a double meaning; — when pop, our 
 
 punster would dart out like a veteran mouser from her covert, 
 seize the unlucky word, and after worrying and mumbling at 
 it until it was capable of no further marring, relapse again 
 into silent watchfulness, and lie in wait for another opportu- 
 nity. — Even this might be borne with, by the aid of a httle 
 philosophy ; but the worst of it is, they are not content to 
 manufacture puns and laugh heartily at them themselves ; but 
 they expect we should laugh with them ; — which I consider as 
 an intolerable hardship, and a ilagrant imposition on good-na- 
 ture. Let those gentlemen fritter away conversation with im- 
 punity, and deal out their wits in sixpenny bits if they please ; 
 but I beg I may have the choice of refusing currency to their 
 small change. I am seriously afraid, however, that our junto 
 is not quite free from the infection; nay, that it has even ap- 
 proached so near as to menace the tranquillity of my elbow- 
 chair : for, WiU Wizzard, as we were in caucus the other night, 
 absolutely electrified Pindar and myself with a most palpable 
 and perplexing pun; had it been a torpedo, it could not have 
 more discomposed the fraternity. Sentence of banishment 
 was unanimously decreed; but on his confessing that, like 
 many celebrated wits, he was merely retailing other men's 
 wares on commission, he was for that once forgiven on condi- 
 tion of refraining from such diabolical practices in future. 
 Pindar is particularly outrageous against punsters ; and quite 
 astonished and put me to a nonplus a day or two since, by ask- 
 ing abruptly "whether I thought a punster could be a good 
 Christain?" He followed up his question triumphantly by 
 offering to prove, by sound logic and historical fact, that the 
 Eoman empire owed its decline and fall to a pun ; and that 
 nothing tended so much to demoralize the French nation, as 
 their abominable rage tovjeux cle mots. 
 
 But what, above every thing else, has caused me much vex- 
 ation of spirit, and displeased me most with this stiff-necked 
 nation is, that in spite of all the serious and profound censures 
 
174 SALMA G UNDI. 
 
 of the sage Mustapha, in his various letters— they iinll talk!-^ 
 they will still wag their tongues, and chatter like very slang- 
 whangersl this is a degree of obstinacy incomprehensible in 
 the extreme ; and is another proof how alarming is the force of 
 habit, and how difficult it is to reduce beings, accustomed to 
 talk, to that state of silence which is. the very acme of human 
 wisdom. 
 
 We can only account for these disappointments in our mod- 
 erate and reasonable expectations, by supposing the world so 
 deeply sunk in the mire of delinquency, that not even Her- 
 cules, were he to put his shoulder to the axletree, would be 
 able to extricate it. We comfort ourselves, however, by the 
 reflection that there are at least three good men left in this de- 
 generate age to benefit the world by example should precept 
 ultimately fail. And borrowing, for once, an example from 
 certain sleepy writers, who, after the first emotions of surprise 
 in finding their invaluable effusions neglected or despised, con- 
 sole themselves with the idea that 'tis a stupid age, and look 
 forward to posterity for redress; — we bequeath our volume 
 to future generations, — and much good may it do them. 
 Heaven grant they may be able to read it ! for, if our fashion- 
 able mode of education continues to improve, as of late, I am 
 under serious apprehensions that the period is not far distant 
 when the discipline of the dancing master will supersede that 
 of the grammarian ; crotchets and quavers supplant the alpha- 
 bet ; and the heels, by an antipodean manoeuvre, obtain entire 
 pre-eminence over the head. How does my heart yearn for 
 poor dear posterity, when this work shall become as unintelli- 
 gible to our grandchildren as it seems to be to their grand- 
 fathers and grandmothers. 
 
 In fact, for I love to be candid, we begin to suspect that 
 "many people read our numbers merely for their amusement, 
 without paying any attention to the serious truths conveyed in 
 every page. Unpardonable want of penetration ! not that we 
 wish to restrict our readers in the article of laughing, which 
 we consider as one of the dearest prerogatives of man, and the 
 distinguishing characteristic which raises him above all other 
 animals: let them laugh, therefore, if they will, provided 
 they profit at the same time, and do not mistake oiu- object. 
 It is one of our indisputable facts that it is easier to laugh ten 
 foUies out of countenance than to coax, reason or flog a man 
 out of one. In this odd, singular, and indescribable age, which 
 is neither the age of gold, silver, iron, brass, chivalry, or pills. 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 175 
 
 as Sir John Carr asserts, a grave writer who attempts to 
 attack folly with the heavy artillery of moral reasoning, will 
 fare like Smollet's honest pedant, who clearly demonstrated by 
 angles, &c., after the manner of EucHd, that it was wrong to 
 do evil ;— and was laughed at for his pains. Take my word for 
 it, a Mttle well-applied ridicule, like Hannibal's application of 
 vinegar to rocks, will do more with certain hard heads and ob- 
 durate hearts, than all the logic or demonstrations in Longinus 
 or EucHd. But the people of Gotham, wise souls, are so much 
 accustomed to see morality approach them clothed in formida- 
 ble wigs and sable garbs, "with leaden eye that loves the 
 ground," that they can never recognize her when, drest in 
 gay attire, she comes tripping towards them with smiles and 
 sunshine in her countenance. — WeU, let the rogues remain in 
 happy ignorance, for "ignorance is bhss," as the poets say;— 
 and I put as impUcit faith in poetry as I do in the almanac or 
 in the newspaper ; — we will improve them, without their being 
 the wiser for it, and they shall become better in spite of their 
 teeth, and without their having the least suspicion of the re- 
 formation working within them. 
 
 Among all our maniiold grievances, however, stiQ some 
 small but vivid rays of sunshine occasionally brighten along 
 our path ; cheering our steps, and inviting us to persevere. 
 
 The public have paid some little regard to a few articles of 
 our advice; — they have purchased our numbers freely; — so 
 much the better for our publisher ; — they have read them at- 
 tentively; — so much the better for themselves. The melan- 
 choly fate of my dear aimt Charity has had a wonderful effect ; 
 and I have now before me a letter from a gentleman who lives 
 opposite to a couple of old ladies, remarkable for the interest 
 they took in his affairs ;— his apartments were absolutely in a 
 state of blockade, and he was on the point of changing his 
 lodgings, or capitulating, until the appearance of our ninth 
 number, which he immediately sent over with his compli- 
 ments; — ^the good ladies took the hint, and have scarcely ap- 
 peared at their window since. As to the wooden gentlemen, 
 our friend Miss Sparkle assures me, they are wonderfully im- 
 proved by our criticisms, and sometimes venture to make a 
 remark, or attempt a pun in company, to the great edification 
 of all who happen to understand them. As to red shawls, they 
 are entirely discarded from the fair shoulders of our ladies— 
 ever since the last importation of finery ; — ^nor has any lady, 
 since the cold weather, ventured to expose her elbows to the 
 
176 SALiTAOUNDI. 
 
 admiring gaze of scrutinizing passengers. But there is one 
 victory we have achieved which has given us more pleasure 
 than to have written down the whole administration : I am as- 
 sured, from unquestionable authority, that our young ladies, 
 doubtless in consequence of our weighty admonition, liavo not 
 once indulged in that intoxicating, inflammatory, and whirh- 
 gig dance, the waltz — ever since hot weather commenced. 
 True it is, I understand, an attempt was made to exhibit it 
 by some of the sable fair ones at the last African ball, but 
 it was highly disapproved of by all the respectable elderly 
 ladies present. 
 
 These are sweet sources of comfort to atone for the many 
 wrongs and misrepresentations heaped upon us by the world ; 
 — for even we have experienced its ill-nature. How often 
 have we heard ourselves reproached for the insidious appUca- 
 tions of the uncharitable ! — how often have we been accused 
 of emotions which never found an entrance into our bosoms ! — 
 how often have our sportive effusions been wrested to serve 
 the purposes of particular enmity and bitterness !— Meddle- 
 some spirits I little do they know our disposition; we "lack 
 gall" to wound the feelings of a single innocent individual ; we 
 can even forgive them from the very bottom of our souls ; may 
 they meet as ready a forgiveness from their own consciences ! 
 like true and independent bachelors, having no domestic cai-es 
 to interfere with our general benevolence, we consider it in- 
 cumbent upon us to watch over the welfare of society ; and 
 although we are indebted to the world for little else than left- 
 handed favours, yet we feel a proud satisfaction in reqiiiting 
 evil with good, and the sneer of Uliberality with the unfeigned 
 smUe of good humour. With these mingled motives of selfish- 
 ness and philanthropy we commenced our work, and if wo 
 cannot solace ourselves with the consciousness of having done 
 much good! yet there is still one pleasing consolation left, 
 which the world can neither give nor take away. Tlierc 
 are moments, — lingering moments of hstless indifference and 
 heavy-hearted despondency, — ^when our best hopes and afEec- 
 tions shpping, as they sometimes wUl, from their hold on those 
 objects to which they usually cling for support, seem aban- 
 doned on the wide waste of cheerless existence, without a 
 place to cast anchor; without a shore in view to excite a 
 single wish, or to give a momentary interest to contempla- 
 tion. We look back with delight upon many of these mo- 
 ments of mental gloom, whUed away by the cheerful exercise 
 
^ALMAGUh'DI. 177 
 
 of our pen, and consider every such triumph over the spleen as 
 retardiag the furrowing hand of time in its insidious encroach- 
 ments on our brows. If, in addition to our own amusements, 
 we have, as we jogged carelessly laughing along, brushed 
 away one tear of dejection and called forth a smUe in its place 
 —if we have brightened the pale countenance of a single child 
 of sorrow — we shall feel almost as much joy and rejoicing as 
 a slang-whanger does when he bathes his pen in the heart's 
 blood of a patron and benefactor; or sacrifices one more illus- 
 trious victim on the altar of party animosity. 
 
 TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 
 
 It is our misfortune to be frequently pestered, in our pere- 
 grinations about this blessed city, by certain critical gad-flics ; 
 who buzz around and merely attack the skin, without ever 
 being able to penetrate the body. The reputation of our prom- 
 ising prof egre Jeremy Cockloft the younger, has been assailed 
 by these skin-deep critics ; they have questioned his claims to 
 originality, and even hinted that the ideas for his New-Jersey 
 Tour were borrowed from a late work entitled ' ' My Pocket- 
 book." As there is no literary offence more despicable in the 
 eyes of the trio than borrowing, we immediately called Jeremy 
 to an account: when he proved, by the dedication of the work 
 in question, that it was first pubhshed in London in March, 
 1807— and that his "Stranger in New- Jersey" had made its ap- 
 pearance on the 24th of the preceding February. 
 
 We were on the point of acquitting Jeremy with honour on 
 the ground that it was impossible, knowing as he is, to bor- 
 row from a foreign work one month before it was in existence ; 
 when Will Wizard suddenly took up the cudgels for the crit- 
 ics, and insisted that nothing was more probable; for he recol- 
 lected reading of an ingenious Dutch author who plainly con- 
 victed the ancients of stealing from his labours ! So much 
 
 for criticism. 
 
 We have received a host of friendly and admonitory letters 
 from difEerent quarters, and among the rest a very loving 
 epistle from Georgetown, Columbia, signed [Teddy M'Gundy, 
 
178 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 who addresses us by the name of Saul M'Gundy, and insists 
 that we are descended from the same Irish progenitors, and 
 nearly related. As friend Teddy seems to be an honest, merry 
 rogue, we are sorry that we cannot admit his claims to kin- 
 dred; we thank him, however, for his good-will, and should 
 ho ever be inclined to favour us with another epistle, we wiU 
 hint to him, and, at the same time, to our other numerous cor- 
 respondents, that their communications will be infinitely more 
 acceptable, if they will just recollect Tom Shuffleton's advice^ 
 "pay the post-boy, Muggins." 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 179 
 
 NO. XIV.-SATURDAY, SEPT. 16, 1807. 
 
 LETTEE FEQM MUSTAPHA EUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, 
 
 TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS fflGHNESS 
 THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI. 
 
 Health and joy to the friend of my heart ! — May the angel 
 of peace ever watch over thy dwelhng, and the star of pros- 
 perity shed its benignant lustre on all thy undertakings. Far 
 other is the lot of thy captive friend;— his brightest hopes 
 extend but to a lengthened period of weary captivity, and 
 memory only adds to the measure of his griefs, by holding up 
 a mirror which reflects with redoubled charms the hours of 
 past fehcity. In midnight slumbers my soul holds sweet con- 
 verse with the tender objects lof its affections;— it is then the 
 exile is restored to his country ; — it is then the wide waste of 
 waters that rolls between us disappears, and I clasp to my 
 bosom the companion of my youth ; I awake and find it is but 
 a vision of the night. The sigh will rise, — the tear of dejection 
 win steal down my cheek: — I fly to my pen, and strive to for- 
 get myseK, and my sorrows, in conversing with my friend. 
 
 In such a situation, my good Asem, it cannot be expected 
 that I should be able so whoUy to abstract myself from my 
 own feelings, as to give thee a full and systematic account of 
 the singular people among whom my disastrous lot has been 
 cast. I can only find leisure, from my own individual sor- 
 rows, to entertain thee occasionally with some of the most 
 prominent features of their character; and now and then a 
 solitary picture of their most preposterous eccentricities. 
 
 I have before observed, that among the distinguishing char- 
 acteristics of the people of this logocracy, is their invincible 
 love of talking; and, that I could compare the nation to noth- 
 ing but a mighty wind-mill. Thou art doubtless at a loss to 
 
180 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 conceive how this imll is supplied with grist; or, in othei; 
 words, how it is possible to furnish subjects to supply the per- 
 petual motion of so many tongues. 
 
 The genius of the nation appears in its highest lustre in this 
 particular in the discovery, or rather the application, of a sub- 
 ject which seems to supply an inexhaustible mine of words. 
 It is nothing more, my friend, than politics ; a word which, I 
 declare to thee, has perplexed me almost as much as the re- 
 doubtable one of economy. On consulting a dictionary of this 
 language, I found it denoted the science of government ; and 
 the relations, situations, and dispositions of states and empires. 
 — Good, thought I, for a people who boast of governing them- 
 selves there could not be a more important subject of investi- 
 gation. I therefore listened attentively, expecting to hear 
 from "the most enlightened people under the sun," for so they 
 modestly term themselves, sublime disputations on the science 
 of legislation and precepts of political wisdom that would not 
 have disgraced our great prophet and legislator himself!— 
 but, alas, Asem ! how continually are my expectations disap- 
 pointed ! how dignified a meaning does this word bear in the 
 dictionary ; — how despicable its common application ; I find it 
 extending to every contemptible discussion of local animosity, 
 and every petty altercation of insignificant individuals. It 
 embraces, ahke, all manner of concerns ; from, the organization 
 of a divan, the election of a bashaw, or the levying of an army, 
 to the appointment of a constable, the personal disputes of two 
 miserable slang-whangers, the cleaning of the streets, or the 
 economy of a dirt-cart. A couple of politicians will quarrel, 
 with the most vociferous pertinacity, about the character of a 
 bum-baihfE whom nobody cares for; or the deportment of a 
 little great man whom nobody knows ; -and this is called talk- 
 ing poUtics ; nay ! it is but a few days since that I was annoyed 
 by a debate between two of my fellow-lodgers, who were mag- 
 nanimously employed in condemning a luckless wight to in- 
 famy, because he chose to wear a red coat, and to entertain 
 certain erroneous opinions some thirty years ago. Shocked at 
 their lUiberal and vindictive spirit, I rebuked them for thus 
 indulging in slander and uncharitableness, about the colour of 
 a coat; which had doubtless for many years been worn out; 
 or the belief in errors, which, in all probability, had been long 
 since atoned for and abandoned ; but they justified themselves 
 by alleging that they were only engaged in politics, and exert- 
 ing that liberty of speech, and freedom of discussion, which 
 
SALMAGUNDI. XSl 
 
 was the glory and safeguard of their national independence. 
 "Oh, Mahomet!" thought I, "what a country must that bo, 
 which builds its political safety on ruined characters and the 
 persecution of individuals !" 
 
 Into what transports of surprise and incrediility am I con- 
 tinually betrayed, as the character of this eccentric people 
 gradually developes itself to my observations. Every new re- 
 search increases the perplexities in which I am involved, and I 
 am more than ever at a loss where to place them in the scale 
 of my estimation. It is thus the philosopher, in pursuing 
 truth through the labyrinth of doubt, error, and misrepresenta- 
 tion, frequently finds himself bewildered in the mazes of con- 
 tradictory experience; and almost wishes he could quietly 
 retrace his wandering steps, steal back into the path of honest 
 ignorance, and jog on once more in contented indifference. 
 
 How fertile in these contradictions is this extensive logoc- 
 racy! Men of different nations, manners, and languages hve 
 in this country in the most perfect harmony ; and nothing is 
 more common than to see individuals, whose respective gov- 
 ernments are at variance, taking each other by the hand and 
 exchanging the offices of friendship. Nay, even on the subject 
 of religion, which, as it affects our dearest interests, our earliest 
 opinions and prejudices, some warmth and heart-burnings 
 might be excused, which, even in our enlightened country, is 
 so fruitful in difference between man and man !— even reUgion 
 occasions no dissension among these people; and it has even 
 been discovered by one of their sages that believing in. one God 
 or twenty Gods "neither breaks a man's leg nor picks his 
 pocket." The idolatrous Persian may here bow down before 
 his everlasting fire, and prostrate himself towards the glowing 
 east. The Chinese may adore his Fo, or his Josh; the Egyp- 
 tian his stork; and the Mussulman practise, unmolested, the 
 divine precepts of our immortal prophet. Nay, even the for- 
 lorn, abandoned Atheist, who Mes down at night without com- 
 mitting himself to the protection of heaven, and rises in the 
 morning without returning thanks for his safety;— wiio hath 
 no deity but his own will ;— whose soul, hire the sandy desert, 
 is barren of every flower of hope to throw a solitary bloom 
 over the deal level of steriHty and soften the wide extent of 
 desolation ;— whose darkened views extend not beyond the hori- 
 zon that bounds his cheerless existence ;— to whom no blissful 
 perspective opens beyond the grave;— even he is suffered to 
 indulge in his desperate opinions, Without exciting one other 
 
182 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 emotion tlian pity or contempt. But this mild and tolerating 
 spirit reaches not beyond the pale of religion: — once differ in 
 politics, in mere theories, visions, and chimeras, the growth of 
 interest, of folly, or madness, and deadly warfare ensues ; 
 every eye flashes fire, every tongue is loaded with reproach, 
 and every heart is filled with gall and bitterness. 
 
 At this period several unjustifiable and serious injuries on 
 the part o£ the barbarians of the British island, have given a. 
 new impulse to the tongue and the pen, and occasioned a 
 terrible wordy fever. — Do not suppose, my friend, that I mean 
 to condemn any proper and dignified expression of resentment 
 for injtjries. On the contrary, I love to see a word before a 
 blow: for "in the fulness of the heart the tongue moveth." 
 But my long experience has convinced me that people who 
 talk the most about taking satisfaction for affronts, generally 
 content themselves with talking instead of revenging the in- 
 sult : Kke the street women of this country, who, after a pro- 
 digious scolding, quietly sit down and fan themselves cool as 
 fast as possible. But to return : — the rage for talking has now, 
 in consequence of the aggressions I alluded to, increased to a 
 degree far beyond what I have observed heretofore. In the 
 gardens of his highness of Tripoli are fifteen thousand bee- 
 hives, three hundred peacocks, and a prodigious number of 
 parrots and baboons; — and yet I declare to thee, Asem, that 
 their buzzing, and squalling, and chattering is nothiag com- 
 pared to the wild uproar and war of words now raging within 
 the bosom of this mighty and distracted logocracy. Politics 
 pervade every city, every village, every temple, every porter- 
 house; — the universal question is, "what is the news?" — This 
 is a kiud of challenge to political debate ; and as no two men 
 think exactly alike, 'tis ten to one but before they finish all the 
 pohte phrases in the language are exhausted by way of giving: 
 fire and energy to argument. What renders tliis talking fever 
 more alarming, is that the people appear to be in the unhappy 
 state of a patient whose palate nauseates the medicine best cal- 
 culated for the cure of his disease, and seem anxious to con- 
 tinue in the fuU enjoyment of their chattering epidemic. They 
 alarm each other by direful reports and fearful apprehensions ; 
 like I have seen a knot of old wives in this country entertain 
 themselves with stories of ghosts and goblins until their im- 
 aginations were in a most agonizing panic. Every day begets 
 some new tale, big with agitation; and the busy goddess, 
 rumour, to speak in the poetic language of the Christians, is 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 1 ;:;$ 
 
 constantly in motion. She mounts her rattling stage-wagon 
 and gallops about the country, freighted, with a load of 
 "hints," " informations," "extracts of loiters from respectable 
 gentlemen," "observations of respectable correspondents," and 
 "unquestionable authorities;" — which her high-priests, the 
 slang-whangers, retail to their sapient followers with all the 
 solemnity — and all the authenticity of oracles. True it is, the 
 mifortunate slang-whangers are sometimes at a loss for food to 
 supply this insatiable appetite for intelligence; and are, not 
 unfrequently, reduced to the necessity of manufacturing dishes 
 suited to the taste of the times : to be served up as morning 
 and evening repasts to their disciples. 
 
 When the hungry poUtician is thus full charged with im- 
 portant information, he sallies forth to give due exercise to his 
 tongue ; and tells all he knows to everybody he meets. Now 
 it is a thousand to one that every person he meets is just as 
 wise as himself, charged with the same articles of information, 
 and possessed of the same violent inclination to give it vent ; 
 for in this country every man adopts some particular slang- 
 whanger as the standard of his judgment, and reads every 
 thing he writes, if he reads nothing else ; which is doubtless 
 the reason why the people of this logocracy are so marvelously 
 enlightened. So away they tUt at each other with their bor- 
 rowed lances, advancing to the combat with the opinions and 
 speculations of their respective slang-whangers, which in all 
 probability are diametricaUy opposite: — here, then, arises as 
 fair an opportunity for a battle of words as heart could wish: 
 and thou mayest rely upon it, Asem, they do not let it pass un- 
 improved. They sometimes begin with argument ; but in pro- 
 cess of time, as the tongue begins to wax wanton, other auxil- 
 iaries become necessary ; recrimination commences ; reproach 
 follows close at its heels ; — from pohtical abuse they proceed to 
 personal; and thus often is a friendship of years trampled 
 down by this contemptible enemy, this gigantic dwarf of poli- 
 tics, the mongrel issue of grovelling ambition and aspiring 
 ignorance ! 
 
 There would be but little harm indeed in all this, if it ended 
 merely in a broken head; for this might soon be healed, and 
 the scar, if any remained, might serve as a waming ever after 
 
 against the indulgence of political intemperance; at the 
 
 worst, the loss of such heads as these would be a gain to the 
 nation. But the evU extends far deeper; it threatens to impair 
 all social intercourse, and even to sever the sacred union of 
 
184 SALMAGVjS^J)!. 
 
 family and kindred. The convivial table is disturbed; the 
 cheerful fireside is invaded; the sroUe of social hilarity is 
 chased away ; — the bond of social love is broken by the ever- 
 lasting intrusion of this fiend of contention, who lurks in the 
 sparkling bowl, crouches by the fireside, growls in the friendly 
 circle, ioiests every avenue to pleasure ; and, Mke the scowhng 
 incubufif, sits on the bosom of society, pressing down and 
 smothering every throb and pulsation of liberal philanthropy. 
 
 But thou wnt perhaps ask, ' ' What can these people dispute 
 about? one would suppose that being all free and equal, they 
 would harmonize as brothers; children of the same parent, 
 and equal heirs of the same inheritance." This theory is most 
 exquisite, my good friend, but in practice it turns out the very 
 dream of a madman. Equality, Asem, is one of the most con- 
 summate scoundrels that ever crept from the brain of a politi- 
 cal juggler — a feUow who thrusts his hand into the pocket of 
 honest industry, or enterprising talent, and sqanders their 
 hard-earned profits on profligate idleness or indolent stupidity. 
 There will always be an inequality among mankind so long as 
 a portion of it is enlightened and industrious, and the rest idle 
 and ignorant. The one wiU acquire a larger share of wealth, 
 and its attendant comforts, refinements, and luxuries of life; 
 and the influence, and power, which those will always possess 
 who have the greatest ability of administering to the neces- 
 sities of their fellow-creatures. These advantages will inevi- 
 tably excite envy; and envy as inevitably begets ill-will:— 
 hence arises that eternal warfare, which the lower orders of 
 society are waging against those who have raised themselves 
 by their own merits, or have been raised by the merits of their 
 ancestors, above the common level. In a nation possessed of 
 quick feelings and impetuous passions, the hostility might en- 
 gender deadly broils and bloody commotions; but here it 
 merely vents itself in high-sounding words, which lead to con- 
 tinual breaches of decoinim; or in the insidious assassination o 
 character, and a restless ■propensity among the base to blacken 
 every reputation which is fairer than their own. 
 
 I cannot help smiling sometimes to see the solicitude with 
 which the people of America, so called from the country hav- 
 ing been first discovered by Christopher Columbus, battle 
 about them when any election takes place ; as if they had the 
 least concern in the matter, or were to be benefited by an 
 exchange of bashaws; — they really seem ignorant th&t none 
 but the bashaws and their dependants are at all interested in 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 185 
 
 ■the event ; and that the people at large will not find their situ- 
 ation altered in the least. I formerly gave thee an account of 
 an election which took place under my eye. — The result has 
 heen that the people, as some of the slang-w hangers say, have 
 obtained a glorious triumph; which, however, is flatly denied 
 by the opposite slang-whangers, who insist that their party is 
 composed of the true sovereign people; and that the others 
 are all jacobins, Frenchmen, and Irish rebels. I oiight to 
 apprise thee that the last is a term of great reproach here; 
 which, perhaps, thou wouldst not otherwise imagine, consider- 
 ing that it is not many years since this very people were 
 engaged in a revolution ; the failure of which would have sub- 
 jected them to the same ignominious epithet, and a participa- 
 tion in which is now the highest recommendation to public 
 confidence. By Mahomet, but it cannot be denied, that the 
 consistency of this people, like every thing else appertaining to 
 them, is on a prodigious great scale ! To return, however, to 
 the event of the election. — The people triumphed, and much 
 good has it done them. I, for my part, expected to see won- 
 derful changes, and most magical metamorphoses. I expected 
 to see the people all rich, that they woiild be all gentlemen 
 bashaws, riding in their coaches, and faring sumptuously every 
 day; emancipated from toil, and reveUing in luxurious ease. 
 Wilt thou credit me, Asem, when I declare to thee that every 
 thing remains exactly in the same state it was before the last 
 wordy campaign? — except a few noisy retainers, who have 
 crept into office, and a few noisy patriots, on the other side, 
 who have been kicked out, there is not the least difference. 
 The labourer toils for his daily support ; the beggar still lives 
 on the charity of those who have any charity to bestow ; and 
 the only soUd satisfaction the multitude have reaped is, that 
 they have got a new governor, or bashaw, whom they will 
 praise, idolize, and exalt for a while ; and afterwards, notwith- 
 standing the sterling merits he really possesses, in compliance 
 with immemorial custom, they will abuse, calumniate, and 
 tjample him under foot. 
 
 Such, my dear Asem, is the way in which the wise people of 
 "the most enlightened country under the sun" are amused 
 with straws and puffed up with mighty conceits; like a certain 
 fish I have seen here, which, having his belly tickled for a short 
 time, will swell and pufE himself up to twice his usual size, and 
 become a mere bladder of wind and vanity. 
 
 The blessing of a true Mussulman Ught on thee, good Asem; 
 
186 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 ever while thou livest be true to thy prophet ; and rejoice, that, 
 though the boasting pohtical chatterers of this logocracy cast 
 upon thy countrymen the ignominious epithet of slaves, thou 
 livest in a country where the people, instead of being at the 
 mercy of a tyrant with a milUon of heads, have nothing to do 
 but submit to the will of a bashaw of only three tails. 
 
 Ever thine, Mustapha. 
 
 COCKLOFT HALL. 
 
 BY LATJNCBLOT LANGSTAFP, ESQ. 
 
 Those who pass their time immured in the smoky circumfer- 
 ence of the city, amid the ratthng of carts, the brawling of the 
 multitude, and the variety of unmeaning and discordant 
 sounds that prey insensibly upon the nerves and beget a weari- 
 ness of the spirits, can alone understand and feel that expan- 
 sion of the heart, that physical renovation which a citizen 
 experiences when he steals forth from his dusty prison to 
 breathe the free air of heaven and enjoy the clear face of 
 nature. Who that has rambled by the side of one of our ma- 
 jestic rivers at the hour of sunset, when the wildly romantic 
 scenery around is softened and tinted by the voluptuous mist 
 of evening ; when the bold and swelling outlines of the distant 
 mountain seem melting into the glowing horizon and a rich 
 mantle of refulgence is thrown over the whole expanse of the 
 heavens, but must have felt how abundant is nature in 
 sources of pure enjoyment; how luxuriant in all that can 
 enliven the senses or dehght the imagination. The jocund 
 zephyr, full freighted with native fragrance, sues sweetly to 
 the senses; the chirping of the thousand varieties of insects 
 with which our woodlands abound, forms a concert of simple 
 melody ; even the barking of the farm dog, the lowing of the 
 cattle, the tinkling of their bells, and the strokes of the wood- 
 man's axe from the opposite shore, seem to partake of the Soft- 
 ness of the scene and fall tunef Tilly upon the ear; while the 
 voice of the villager, chanting some rustic ballad, swells from a 
 distance in the semblance of the very music of harmonious love. 
 
 At such time I feel a sensation of sweet tranquillity; a 
 hallowed calm is diffused over my senses; I cast my eyes 
 
SALMAaUNDI. 187 
 
 around, and every object is serene, simple, and beautiful; no 
 warring passion, no discordant string there vibrates to the 
 touch of ambition, self-interest, hatred, or revenge ;— I am at 
 peace with the whole world, and haU all mankind as friends 
 and brothers. — Bhssful moments ! ye recall the careless days of 
 my boyhood, when mere existence was happiness, when hope 
 was certainty, this world a paradise, and every woman a min- 
 istering angel ! — surely man was designed for a tenant of the 
 universe, instead of being pent up in these dismal cages, these 
 dons of strife, disease, and discord. We were created to range 
 the fields, to sport among the groves, to build castles in the air, 
 and have every one of them realized ! 
 
 A whole legion of reflections like these insinuated themselves 
 into my mind, and stole me from the influence of the cold reali- 
 ties before me, as I took my accustomed walk, a few weeks 
 since, on the battery. Here watching the splendid mutations 
 of one of our summer skies, which emulated the boasted glories 
 of an Italian sun-set, I all at once discovered that it was but to 
 pack up my portmanteau, bid adieu for awhile to my elbow- 
 chair, and in a little time I should be transported from the re- 
 gion of smoke, and noise, and dust, to the enjoyment of a far 
 sweeter prospect and a brighter sky. The next morning I was 
 off fidl tilt to Cockloft-Hall, leaving my man Pompey to follow 
 at his leisure with my baggage. I love to indulge in rapid 
 transitions, which are prompted by the quick impulse of the 
 moment;— 'tis the only mode of guarding against that intrud- 
 ing and deadly foe to aU parties of pleasure,— anticipation. 
 
 Having now made good my retreat, until the black frosts 
 commence, it is but a piece of civility due to my readers, who I 
 trust are, ere this, my friends, to give them a proper introduc- 
 tion to my present residence. I do this as much to gratify 
 them as myself : well knowing a reader is always anxious to 
 learn how his author is lodged, whether in a garret, a cellar, a 
 hovel, or a palace ; at least an author is generally vain enough 
 to think so; and an author's vanity ought sometimes to be 
 gratified; poor vagabond ! it is often the only gratification he 
 ever tastes in this world ! 
 
 CooKLOFT-HALL is the country residence of the family, or 
 rather the paternal mansion ; which, like the mother country, 
 sends forth whole colonies to populate the face of the earth. 
 Pindar whimsically denominates it the family hive ! and there 
 is at least as much truth as humour in my cousin's epithet ;— 
 for many a redundant swarm has it produced. I don't recollect 
 
188 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 whether I have at any time mentioned to my readers, for I 
 seldom look back on what I have written, that the fertility of 
 the Cocklofts is proverbial. The female members of the family 
 are most incredibly fruitful ; and to use a favourite phrase of 
 old Cockloft, who is excessively addicted to backgammon, 
 they seldom fail "to throw doublets every time." I myself 
 have known three or four very industrious young men reduced 
 to- great extremities, with some of these capital breeders; 
 heaven smiled upon their union, and enriched them with a 
 numerous and hopeful offspring — who eat them out of doors. 
 
 But to return to the haU. — It is pleasantly situated on the 
 bank of a sweet pastoral stream : not so near town as to invite 
 an inundation of unmeaning, idle acquaintance, who come to 
 lounge away an afternoon, nor so distant as to render it an 
 absolute deed of charity or friendship to perform the journey. 
 It is one of the oldest habitations in the country, and was 
 built by my cousin Christopher's grandfather, who was also 
 mine by the mother's side, in his latter days, to form, as the old 
 gentleman expressed himself, "a snug retreat, where he meanu 
 to sit himself down in his old days and be comfortable for the 
 rest of his life." He was at this time a few years over four 
 score : but this was a common saying of his, with which he 
 usually closed his airy speculations. One would have thought, 
 from the long vista of years through which he contemplated 
 many of his projects, that the good man had forgot the age of 
 the patriarchs had long since gone by, and calculated upon 
 living a century longer at least. He was for a considerable 
 time in doubt on the question of roofing his house with shingles 
 or slate :— shingles would not last above thirty years ! but then 
 they were much cheaper than slates. He settled the matter by 
 a kind of compromise, and determined to build with shingles 
 first; "and when they are worn out," said the old gentleman, 
 triumphantly, "'twill be time enough to replace them with 
 more durable materials !" But his contemplated improvements 
 surpassed everything; and scarcely had he a roof over his 
 head, when he discovered a thousand things to be arranged 
 before he could "sit down comfortably." In the first place, 
 every tree and bush on the place was cut down or grubbed up 
 by the roots, because they were not placed to his mind ; and a 
 vast quantity of oaks, chestnuts, and elms, set out in clumps 
 and rows, and labyrinths, which he observed in about five-and- 
 twenty or thirty years at most, would yield a very tolerable 
 shade, and, moreover, shut out all the surrounding country; 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 189 
 
 for he was determined, lie said, to have aU his views on his 
 own land, and be beholden to no man for a prospect. This, 
 my learned readers -will perceive, was something very like the 
 idea of Lorenzo de Medici, who gave as a reason for preferring 
 one of his seats above all the others, "that all the ground 
 within view of it was his own:" now, whether my grandfather 
 ever heard of the Medici, is more than I can say; I rather 
 think, however, from the characteristic originality of the 
 Cocklofts, that it was a whim-wham of his own begetting. 
 Another odd notion of the old gentleman was to blowup a 
 large bed of rocks, for the purpose of having a fish-pond, 
 although the river ran at about one hundred yards distance 
 from the house, and was well stored with fish ; — ^but there was 
 nothing, he said, like having things to one's-self . So at it he 
 went with all the ardour of a projector who has just hit upon 
 some splendid and useless whim-wham. As he proceeded, his 
 views enlarged; he would ha.ve a summer-house built on the 
 margin of the fish-pond ; he would have it surroimded with 
 elms and wOlows ; and he would have a cellar dug under it, 
 fcr some incomprehensible purpose, which remains a secret to 
 ths day. "In a few years," he observed, "it would be a de- 
 lightful piece of wood and water, where he might ramble oil a 
 Buramer's noon, smoke his pipe, and enjoy himself in his old 
 days:"— thrice honest old soul!— he died of an apoplexy in 
 his ninetieth year, just as he had begun to blow up the fish- 
 pond. 
 
 Let no one ridicule the whim- whams of my grandfather. 
 
 If — and of this there is no doubt, for wise men have said it — if 
 life is but a dream, happy is he who can make the most of the 
 illusion. 
 
 Since my grandfather's death, the hall has passed through 
 the hands of a succession of true old cavahers, like himself, 
 who gloried in observing the golden rules of hospitality; 
 which, according to the Cockloft principle, consist in giving a 
 guest the freedom of the house, cramming him with beef and 
 pudding, and, if possible, laying him under the table with 
 prime port, claret, or London particular. The mansion ap- 
 pears to have been consecrated to the jolly god, and teems 
 with monuments sacred to conviviality. Every chest of draw- 
 ers, clothes-press, and cabinet, is decorated with enormous 
 China punch-bowls, which Mrs. Cockloft has paraded with 
 much ostentation, particularly in her favourite red damask 
 bed-chamber, and in which a projector might, with great satis- 
 
190 BALMAGUNDI. 
 
 faction, practise his experiments on fleets, diving-bells, and 
 sub-marine boats. 
 
 I have before mentioned cousin Christopher's profound ven- 
 eration for antique furniture ; in consequence of which the old 
 hall is furnished in much the same style with the house in 
 town. Old-fashioned bedsteads, with high testers; massy 
 clothes-presses, standing most majestically on oagles' claws, 
 and ornamented with a profusion of shining brass handles, 
 clasps, and hinges : and around the grand parlour are solemnly 
 arranged a set of high-backed, leather-bottomed, massy, ma- 
 hogany chairs, that always remind me of the formal long- 
 waisted belles, who flourished in stays and buckram, about the 
 time they were in fashion. 
 
 If I may judge from their height, it was not the fashion for 
 gentlemen in those days to loll over the back of a lady's chair, 
 and whisper in her ear what— might be as well spoken aloud;— 
 at least, they must have been Patagonians to have effected it. 
 Will Wizard declares that he saw a Httle fat Grerman gallant 
 attempt once to whisper Miss Barbara Cockloft in this manner, 
 but being unluckily caught by the chin, he dangled and kicked 
 about for half a minute, before he could find terra firma;— but 
 Will is much addicted to hyperbole, by reason of his having 
 been a great traveller. 
 
 But what the Cocklofts most especially pride themselves 
 upon, is the possession of several family portraits, which ex- 
 hibit as honest a square set of portly, well-fed looking gentle- 
 men, and gentlewomen, as ever grew and flourished under the 
 pencil 6f a Dutch painter. Old Christopher, who is a complete 
 genealogist, has a story to tell of each ; and dilates with co- 
 pious eloquence on the great services of the general in large 
 sleeves, during the old French war ; and on the piety of the lady 
 in blue velvet, who so attentively peruses her book, and was 
 pnce so celebrated for a beautiful arm : but much as I rever- 
 ence my illustrious ancestors, 1 flnd little to admire in their 
 Diography, except my cousin's excellent memory; which is 
 most provokingly retentive of every uninteresting particular. 
 
 My allotted chamber in the hall is the same that was occupied 
 in days of yore by my honoured uncle John. The room exhib- 
 its many memorials which recall to my remembrance the solid 
 excellence and amiable eccentricities of that gallant old lad. 
 Over the mantel-piece hangs the portrait of a young lady 
 droFsod in a flaring, long-waisted, blue-sflk gown ; be-flowered, 
 and be-furbelowed, and be-cuffed, in a most abundant manner • 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 191 
 
 she holds in one hand a book, which she very complaisantly 
 neglects to turn and smile on the spectator; in the other a 
 flower, which I hope, for the honour of dame nature, was the 
 sole production of the painter's imagination ; and a httle behind 
 her is something tied to a blue riband, but whether a little dog, 
 a monkey, or a pigeon, must be left to the judgment of future 
 commentators. The httle damsel, tradition says, was my 
 imcle John's third flame; and he would infalhbly have run 
 away with her, could he have persuaded her into the measure ; 
 hut at that time ladies were not quite so easily run away with 
 as Columbine ; and my uncle, failing in the point, took a lucky 
 thought; and with great gallantry ran off with her picture, 
 which he conveyed in triumph to Cockloft-hall, and hung up 
 in his bed-chamber as a monument of his enterprising spirit. 
 The old gentleman prided himself mightfly on this chivalric 
 manoeuvre ; always chuckled, and pulled up his stock when he 
 contemplated the picture, and never related the exploit without 
 winding up with — "I might, indeed, have carried off the origi- 
 nal, had I chose to dangle a httle longer after her chariot- 
 wheels ; — for, to do the girl justice, I beheve she had a liking 
 for me ; but I always scorned to coax, my boy,— always,— 'twas 
 my way." My uncle John was of a happy temperament; — I 
 would give half I am worth for his talent at self-consolation. 
 
 The Miss Cocklofts have made several spirited attempts to 
 introduce modem furniture into the hall ; out with very indif- 
 ferent success. Modem style has always been an object of 
 great annoyance to honest Christopher ; and is ever treated by 
 him with sovereign contempt, as an upstart intruder. — It is a 
 common observation of his, that your old-fashioned substantial 
 furniture bespeaks the respectabihty of one's ancestors, and in- 
 dicates that the family has been used to hold up its head for 
 more than the present generation ; whereas the fragile appen- 
 dages of modem style seemed to be emblems of mushroom 
 gentflity; and, to his mind, predicted that the family dignity 
 would moulder away and vanish with the finery thus put on 
 of a sudden.— The same whim- wham makes him averse to hav. 
 inghis house surrounded with, poplars; which he stigmatizes 
 as mere upstarts; just flt to ornament the shingle palaces of 
 modem gentry, and characteristic of the establishments they 
 decorate. Indeed, so far does he carry his veneration for all 
 the antique trumpery, that he can scarcely see the venerable 
 dust brushed from its resting place on the old-fashioned testers ; 
 or a gray -bearded spider dislodged from his ancient inheritance 
 
192 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 without groaning ; and I once saw him in a transport of passion 
 on Jeremy's knocking down a mouldering martin-coop witi» bis 
 tennis-ball, which had been set up in the latter days of my 
 grandfather. Another object of his peculiar affection is an old 
 English cherry tree, which leans against a corner of the hall ; 
 and whether the house ^^pports it, or it supports the house, 
 would be, I baUe^e, a question of some difficulty to decide. It 
 is held sacred by friend Christopher because he planted and 
 reared it himself, and had once weU-mgh broke his neck by a 
 fall from one of its branches. This is one of his favourite 
 stories : — and there is reason to beUeve, that if the tree was 
 out of the way, the old gentleman would forget the whole af- 
 fair; — ^which would be a great pity. — The old tree has long since 
 ceased bearing, and is exceedingly infirm; — every tempest robs 
 it of a limb ; and one would suppose from the lamentations of 
 my old friend, on such occasions, that he had lost one of his 
 own. He often contemplates it in a half -melancholy, half- 
 moralizing humour — "together, "he says, "have we flourished, 
 and together shall we wither away : — a few years, and both our 
 heads will be laid low; and, perhaps, my mouldering bones 
 may, one day or other, mingle with the dust of the tree I have 
 planted." He often fancies, he says, that it rejoices to see hiTn 
 when ho revisits the haU ; and that its leaves assume a brighter 
 verdure, as if to welcome his arrival. How whimsically are 
 our tenderest feelings assailed ! At one time the old tree had 
 obtruded a withered branch before Miss Barbara's window, and 
 she desired her father to order the gardener to saw it off. I 
 shall never forget the old man's answer, and the look that ac- 
 companied it. "What," cried he, "lop off the limbs of my 
 cherry tree in its old age ? — why do you not cut off the gray 
 locks of your poor old father ?" 
 
 Do my readers yawn at this long family detail ? They are 
 welcome to throw down our work, and never resume it again. 
 I have no care for such ungratified spirits, and wUl not throw 
 away a thought on one of them; — fuU often have I contributed 
 to their amusement, and have I not a right, for once, to consult 
 my own ? Who is there that does not fondly turn, at times, to 
 linger round those scenes which were once the haunt of his boy- 
 hood, ere his heart grew heavy and his head waxed gray ; — and 
 to dwell with fond affection on the friends who have twined 
 
 themselves round his heart, mingled in all his enjoyments, 
 
 contributed to aU his felicities ? If there be any who can- 
 not relish these enjoyments, let them despair; — for they ha^^e 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 193 
 
 been so soiled in their intercourse with the world, as to be in- 
 capable of tasting some of the purest pleasures that survive the 
 happy period of youth. 
 
 To such as have not yet lost the rural feeling, I address this 
 simple family picture ; and in the honest sincerity of a waiia 
 heart, I invite them to turn aside from bustle, care, and toil, 
 to tarry with me for a season, in the hospitable mansion of the 
 Cocklofts. 
 
 I WAS really apprehensive, on reading the following effusion 
 of WiU Wizard, that he still retained that pestUent hankeriag 
 after puns of which we lately convicted him. He, however, 
 aeclares, that he is fully authorized by the example of the most 
 popular critics and wits of the present age, whose manner and 
 matter he has closely, and he flatters himself successfully, 
 copied in the subsequent essay. 
 
 THEATEICAL INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 
 
 The uncommon healthiness of the season, occasioned, as 
 several learned physicians assure me, by the universal preva- 
 lence of the influenza, has encouraged the chieftain of our dra- 
 matic corps to marshal his forces, and to commence the cam- 
 paign at a much earlier day than usual. He has been induced 
 to take the field thus suddenly, I am told, by the invasion of 
 certain foreign marauders, who pitched their tents at Vauxhall- 
 Garden dming the warm months ; and taking advantage of his 
 army being disbanded and dispersed in summer quarters, com- 
 mitted sad depredations upon the borders of his territories:— 
 carrying off a considerable portion of his winter harvest, and 
 murdering some of his most distinguished characters. 
 
 It is true, these hardy invaders have been reduced to great 
 extremity by the late heavy rains, which injured and de- 
 stroyed much of their camp-equipage ; besides spoihng the best 
 part of their wardrobe. Two cities, a triumphal car, and a 
 new moon for Cinderella, together with the barber's boy who 
 •was employed every night to powder and make it shine white, 
 
194 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 have been entirely washed away, and the sea has become very 
 wet and mouldy; insomuch that great apprehensions are 
 entertained that it wiU never be dry enough for use. Add to 
 this the noble county Paris had the misfortune to tear his cor- 
 duroy breeches, in the scuffle with Eomeo, by reason of the 
 tomb being very wet, which occasioned him to slip ; and he 
 and his noble rival possessing but one poor pair of satin ones 
 between them, were reduced to considerable shifts to keep up 
 the dignity of their respective houses. In spite of these disad- 
 vantages, and the untoward circumstances, they continued to 
 enact most intrepidly ; performing with much ease and confi- 
 dence, inasmuch as they were seldom pestered with an audi- 
 ence to criticise and put them out of countenance. It is 
 rumoured that the last heavy shower absolutely dissolved the 
 company, and that our manager has nothing further to appre- 
 hend from that quarter. 
 
 The theatre opened on Wednesday last, with great eclat, as 
 we critics say, and almost vied in brilliancy with that of my 
 superb friend Consequa in Canton; where the castles were aU 
 ivory, the sea mother-of-pearl, the skies gold and silver leaf, 
 and the outside of the boxes inlaid with scallop sheU-work. 
 Those who want a better description of the theatre, may as 
 weU go and see it ; and then they can judge for themselves. 
 For the gratification of a highly respectable class of readers, 
 who love to see every thing on paper, I had indeed prepared a 
 circumstantial and truly incomprehensible account of it, such 
 as your traveller always fills his book with, and which I defy 
 tho most intelUgent architect, even the great Sir Christopher 
 Wren, to understand. I had jumbled cornices, and pilasters, 
 and pillars, and capitals, and trighphs, and modules, and 
 plinths, and volutes, and perspectives, and foreshortenings, 
 helter-skelter; and had set all the orders of architecture, Doric, 
 Ionic, Corinthian, etc. , together by the ears, in order to work 
 out a satisfactory description ; but the manager having sent 
 me a polite note, requesting that I would not take off the sharp 
 edge, as he whimsically expresses it, of public curiosity, thereby 
 diminishing the receipts of his house, I have willingly con- 
 sented to oblige him, and have left my description at the store 
 of our publisher, where any person may see it — provided he 
 appHes at a proper hour. 
 
 I cannot refrain here from giving vent to the satisfaction 
 I received from the excellent performances of the different 
 actors one and all; and particularly the gentlemen who shifted 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 195 
 
 the scenes, who acquitted themselves throughout with great 
 celerity, dignity, pathos and effect. Nor must I pass over the 
 peculiar merits of my friend John, who gallanted off the 
 chairs and tables in the most dignified and circumspect man- 
 ner. Indeed, I have had frequent occasion to applaud the cor- 
 rectness with which this gentleman fulfils the parts allotted 
 him, and consider him as one of the best general performers in 
 the company. My friend, the cockney, found considerable 
 fault with the manner in which John shoved a huge rock from 
 behind the scenes; maintaining that he should have put his left 
 foot forward, and pushed it with his right hand, that being the 
 method practised by his contemporaries of the royal theatres, 
 and universally approved by their best critics. He also took 
 exception to John's coat, which he pronounced too short by a 
 foot at least; particularly when he turned his back to the com- 
 pany. But I look upon these objections in the same light as 
 new readings, and insist that John shall be allowed to 
 manoeuvre his chairs and tables, shove his rocks, and wear his 
 skirts in that style which his genius best effects. My hopes in 
 the rising merit of this favourite actor daily increase ; and I 
 would hint to the manager the propriety of giving him a 
 benefit, advertising in the usual style of play-bUls, as a 
 "springe to catch woodcocks," that, between the play and 
 farce, John will make a bow— for that night only ! 
 
 1 am told that no pains have been spared to make the exhibi- 
 tions of this season as splendid as possible. Several expert isat- 
 catchers have been sent into different parts of the country to 
 catch white mice for the grand pantomime of Cindeeella. A 
 nest fuU of Httle squab Oupids have been taken in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Oommunipaw; they are as yet but half fledged, 
 of the true Holland breed, and it is hoped will be able to fly 
 about by the middle of October; otherwise they will be sus- 
 pended about the stage by the waistband, Mke little alUgators 
 in an apothecary's shop, as the pantomime must positively be 
 performed by that time. Grreat pains and expense have been 
 incurred in the importation of one of the most portly pump- 
 kins in New-England ; and the public may be assured there is 
 now one on board a vessel from New-Haven, which will con- 
 tain Cinderella's coach and six with perfect ease, were the 
 white mice even ten times as large. 
 
 Also several barrels of hail, rain, brimstone, and gunpowder, 
 are in store for melo-dramas; of which a number are to be 
 played off this winter. It is furthermore whispered me that 
 
196 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 the great thunder-drum has been new braced, and an expert) 
 performer on that instrument engaged, who wiU thunder in 
 plain English, so as to be understood by the most iUiterate 
 hearer. This wiU be infinitely preferable to the miserable 
 Italian thunderer employed last winter by Mr. Ciceri, who 
 performed in such an unnatural and outlandish tongue that 
 none but the scholars of signer Da Ponte cculd understand 
 him. It wUl be a further gratification to the patriotic audi- 
 ence to know, that the present thunderer is a fellow-country- 
 man, bom at Dunderbarrack, among the echoes of the High- 
 lands ; — and that he thunders with peculiar emphasis and pom' 
 pons enunciation, in the true style of a fourth of July orator. 
 
 In addition to all these additions, the manager has provided 
 an entire new snow-storm; the very sight of which wiU be 
 quite sufficient to draw a shawl over every naked bosom in the 
 theatre; the snow is perfectly fresh, having been manufac- 
 tured last August. 
 
 N. B. The outside of the theatre has been ornamented with a 
 new chimney 1! 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 197 
 
 NO. XV.-THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 180T. 
 
 SKETCHES FEOM NATUEE. 
 
 BY ANTHONY EVEEGEEEN, GENT. 
 
 The brisk north-westers, which prevailed not long since, had 
 a powerful effect in arresting the progress of belles, beaux, and 
 wild pigeons in their fashionable northern tour, and turning 
 them back to the more balmy region of the South. Among 
 the rest, I was encountered, full butt, by a blast which set my 
 teeth chattering, just as I doubled one of the frowning bluffs 
 of the Mohawk mountains, in my route to Niagara; and facing 
 about incontinently, I forthwith scud before the wind, and a 
 few days since arrived at my old quarters in New- York. My 
 first care, on returning from so long an absence, was to visit 
 the worthy family of the Cocklofts, whom. I found safe, bur- 
 rowed in their coimtry mansion. On inquiring for my highly 
 respected coadjutor, Langstaff, I learned with great concern 
 that he had relapsed into one of his eccentric fits of the spleen, 
 ever since the era of a turtle dinner given by old Cockloft to 
 some of the neighbouring squires ; wherein the old gentleman 
 had achieved a glorious victory, in laying hcnest Launcelot 
 fairly under the table. Langstaff, although fond of the social 
 board, and cheerful glass, yet abominates any excess ; and has 
 an invincible aversion to getting mellow, considering it a wil- 
 ful outrage on the sanctity of imperial mind, a senseless abuse 
 of the body, and an unpardonable, because a voluntary, pros- 
 tration of both mental and personal dignity. I have heard 
 him moralize on the subject, in a style that would have done 
 honour to Michael Cassia himself ; but I believe, if the truth 
 were known, this antipathy rather arises from his having, as 
 the phrase is, but a weak head, and nerves so extremely sensi- 
 tive, that he is sure to suffer severely from a f roUc ; and will 
 
198 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 groan and make resolutions against it for a week afterwards. 
 He therefore took this waggish exploit of old Christopher's, and 
 the consequent quizzing which he underwent, in high dudgeon, 
 had kept aloof from company for a fortnight, and appeared to 
 be meditating some deep plan of retaliation upon his mis- 
 chievous old crony. He had, however, for the last day or two, 
 shown some symptoms of convalescence : had listened, without 
 more than half a dozen twitches of impatience, to one of Chris- 
 topher's unconscionable long stories; and even was seen to 
 smile, for the one hundred and thirtieth time, at a venerable 
 joke originally borrowed from Joe MiUer: but which, by dint 
 of long occupancy, and frequent repetition, the old gentleman 
 now firmly beheves happened to himself somewhere in New- 
 England. 
 
 As I am well acquainted with Launcelot's haunts, I soon 
 found him out. He was lolHng on his favourite bench, rudely 
 constructed at the foot of an old tree, which is fuU of fantasti- 
 cal twists, and with its spreading branches forms a canopy of 
 luxuriant foliage. This tree is a kind of chronicle of the shorti 
 reigns of his uncle John's mistresses ; and its trunk is sorely 
 wounded with carvings of true lovers' knots, hearts, darts, 
 names, and inscriptions!— f rail memorials of the variety of the 
 fair dames who captivated the wandering fancy of that old 
 cavalier in the days of his youthful romance. Launcelot holds 
 this tree in particular regard, as he does every thing else con- 
 nected with the memory of Ms good uncle John. He was re- 
 clining, in one of his usual brown studies, against its trunk, 
 and gazing pensively upon the river that glided just by, wash- 
 ing the drooping branches of the dwarf wiUows that fringed its 
 bank. My appearance roused him ;— he grasped my hand with 
 his usual warmth, and with a tremulous but close pressure, 
 which spoke that his heart entered into the salutation. Aiter 
 a number of affectionate inquiries and felicitations, such as 
 friendship, not form, dictated, he seemed to relapse into his 
 former flow of thought, and to resume the chain of ideas my 
 appearance had broken for a moment. 
 
 "I was reflecting," said he, "my dear Anthony, upon some 
 observations I made in our last number; and considering 
 whether the sight of objects once dear to the affections, or of 
 scenes where we have passed different happy periods of early 
 life, really occasions most enjoyment or most regret. Renew- 
 ing our acquaintance with well-known but long-separated ob- 
 jects, revives, it is true, the recollection of former pleasures, 
 
SA LMA G UNDI. 199 
 
 and touches the tenderest f eeKngs of the heart ; hke the flavour 
 of a delicious beverage will rsmaia upon the palate long after 
 the cup has parted from the Mps. But on the other hand, my 
 friend, these same objects are too apt to awaken us to a keener 
 recollection of what we were, when they erst delighted us ; to 
 provoke a mortifying and melancholy contrast with what we 
 are at present. They act, in a manner, as milestones of exist- 
 ence, showing us how far we have travelled in the journey of 
 lire ; — how much of our weary but fascinating pilgrimage is 
 accompUshed. I look round me, and my eye fondly recognizes 
 the fields I once sported over, the river in which I once swam, 
 and the orchard I intrepidly robbed in the halcyon days of 
 boyhood. The fields are still green, the river stOl roUs un- 
 altered and undiminished, and the orchard is still flourishing 
 and fruitful ;^t is I only am changed. The thoughtless flow 
 of mad-cap spirits that nothing could depress;— the elasticity 
 of nerve that enabled me to bound over the field, to stem the 
 stream, and climb the tree ; — the ' sunshine of the breast ' that 
 beamed an illusive charm over every object, and created a 
 paradise around me! — where are they? — the thievish lapse of 
 years has stolen them away, and left in return nothing but 
 gray hairs, and a repining spirit." My friend Launcelot con- 
 cluded his harangue with a sigh, and as I saw he was still 
 under the influence of a whole legion of the blues, and just on 
 the point of sinking into one of his whimsical and unreason- 
 able fits of melancholy abstraction, I proposed a walk ;— he con- 
 sented, and slipping his left arm in .mine, and waving in the 
 other a gold-heaoed thorn cane, bequeathed him by his uncle 
 John, we slowly rambled along the margin of the river. 
 
 Langstaff, though possessing great vivacity of temper, is 
 most wofuUy subject to these "thick coming fancies:" and I 
 do not know a man whose animal spirits do insult him with 
 more jiltings, and coquetries, and slippery tricks. In these 
 moods he is often visited by a whim-wham which he indulges 
 in common with the Cocklofts. It is that of looking back with 
 regret, conjuring up the phantoms of good old times, and deck- 
 ing them out in imaginary finery, with the spoils of his fancy ; 
 like a good lady widow, regretting the loss of the " poor dear 
 man;" for whom, while living, she cared not a rush. I have 
 seen him and Pindar, and old Cockloft, amuse themselves over 
 a bottle with their youthful days; until by the time they had 
 become what is termed merry, they were the most miserable 
 beings in existence. In a similar humour was Laimcelot at 
 
200 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 present, and I knew the only way was to let him moraUze 
 himself out of it. 
 
 Our ramble was soon interrupted by the appearance of a 
 personage of no little importance at Cockloft-hall; — for, to let 
 my readers into a family secret, friend Christopher is notori- 
 ously hen-pecked by an old negro, who has whitened on the 
 place; and is his master, almanac, and counsellor. My read- 
 ers, if haply they have sojourned in the country, and become 
 conversant in rural manners, must have observed, that there is 
 scarce a little hamlet but has one of these old weather-beaten 
 wiseacres of negroes, who ranks among the great characters of 
 the place. He is always resorted to as an oracle to resolve any 
 question about the weather, fishing, shooting, farming, and 
 horse-doctoring : and on such occasions will slouch his remnant 
 of a hat on one side, fold his arms, roll his white eyes, and 
 examine the sky, with a look as knowing as Peter Pindar's 
 magpie when peeping into a marrow-bone. Such a sage 
 curmudgeon is Old Csesar, who acts as friend Cockloft's prime 
 minister or grand vizier ; assumes, when abroad, his master's 
 stylo and title ; to wit, squire Cockloft ; and is, in eif ect, abso- 
 lute lord and ruler of the soil. 
 
 As he passed us he pulled off his hat with an air of some- 
 thing more than respect ; — ^it partook, I thought, of affection. 
 "There, now, is another memento of the kind I have been 
 noticing," said Launcelot; "Cassar was a bosom friend and 
 chosen playmate of cousin Pindar and myself, when we were 
 boys. Never were we so happy as when, stealing away on a 
 holiday to the hall, we ranged aboiit the fields with honest 
 Csesar. He was particularly adroit in making our quail-traps 
 and fishing-rods; was always the ring-leader in all the schemes 
 of frolicksome mischief perpetrated by the urchins of the 
 neighbourhood ; considered himself on an equaUty with the 
 best of us; and many a hard battle have I had with him, 
 about a division of the spoils of an orchard, or the title to a 
 bird's nest. Many a summer evening do I remember when 
 huddled together on the steps of the hall door, Caesar, with his 
 stories of ghosts, goblins, and witches, would put us all in a 
 panic, and people every lane, and church-yard, and soHtary 
 wood, with imaginary beings. In process of time, he became 
 the constant attendant and Man Friday of cousin Pindar, 
 whenever he went a sparking among the rosy country girls 
 of the neighbouring farms ; and brought up his rear at every 
 rustic dance, vrhen he would mingle in the sable group that 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 201 
 
 always thronged the door of merriment ; and it was enough to 
 put to the rout a host of splenetic imps to see his mouth grad- 
 ually dilate from ear to ear, with pride and exultation, at see- 
 ing how neatly master Piadar footed it over the floor. Csesar 
 was likewise the chosen confidant and special agent of Pindar 
 in all his love affairs, until, as his evil stars would have it, on 
 being entrusted with the dehvery of a poetic billetdoux to one 
 of his patron's sweethearts, he took an unlucky notion to send 
 it to his own sable dulcinea; who, not being able to read it, 
 took it to her mistress ; — and so the whole affair was blown. 
 Pindar was universally roasted, and Caesar discharged for 
 ever from his confidence. 
 
 "Poor Caesar! — he has now grown old, like his young 
 masters, but he stiU remembers old times ; and wiU, now and 
 then, remind me of them as he lights me to my room, and 
 
 lingers a little while to bid me a good-night : believe me, my 
 
 dear Evergreen, the honest, simple old creature has a warm 
 comer in my heart; — I don't see, for my part, why a body 
 may not like a negro as weU. as a white man I" 
 
 By the time these biographical anecdotes were ended we had 
 reached the stable, into which we involuntarily strolled, and 
 found Caesar busily employed in rubbing down the horses ; an 
 office he would not entrust to any body else; having con- 
 tracted an affection for every beast ia the stable, from their 
 being descendants of the old race of animals, his youthful con- 
 temporaries. Caesar was very particular in giving us their 
 pedigrees, together with a panegyric on the swiftness, bottom, 
 blood, and spirit of then- sires. From these he digressed into a 
 variety of anecdotes, in which Launcelot bore a conspicuous 
 part, and on which the old negro dwelt with all the garrulity 
 of age. Honest Langstaff stood leaning with his arm over the 
 back of his favourite steed, old Ejlldeer ; and I could perceive 
 he listened to Caesax's simple details with that fond attention 
 with which a feeling mind will hang over narratives of boyish 
 days. His eyes sparkled with animation, a glow of youthful 
 fire stole across his pale visage ; he nodded with smiling appro- 
 bation at every sentence; — chuckled at every exploit; -laughed 
 heartily at the story of his once having smoked out a country 
 singing-school with brimstone and assaf oetida ; — and slipping a 
 piece of money into old Caesar's hand to buy himself a new 
 tobacco-box, he seized me by the arm and hurried out of the 
 stable brimfull of good-nature. " 'Tis a pestilent old rogue for 
 talking, my dear fellow," cried he, "but you must not find 
 
202 SALMA G UNDI. 
 
 fault with him, — the creature moans well." I knew at the 
 very moment that he made this apology, honest Caesar could 
 not have given him half the satisfaction had he talked like a 
 Cicero or a Solomon. 
 
 Launcelot returned to the house with me in the best possible 
 humour:— the whole family, who, in truth, love and honour 
 him from their very souls, were deUghted to see the sunbeams 
 once more play in his countenance. Every one seemed to vie 
 who should talk the most, tell the longest stories, and bo most 
 agreeable ; and WUl Wizard, who had accompanied me in my 
 visit, declared, as he hghted his segar, which had gone out 
 forty times in the course of one of his oriental tales, — that he 
 had not passed so pleasant an evening since the birth-night 
 ball of the beauteous empress of Hayti. 
 
 [The following essay was written by my friend Langstaff, in 
 one of the paroxysms of his splenetic complaint; and, for 
 aught I know, may have been effectual in restoring him to 
 good humour. — A mental discharge of the kind has a remark- 
 able tendency toward sweetening the temper,— and Launcelot 
 is, at this moment, one of the best-natured men in existence. 
 
 A. EVEEGEEEN.] 
 
 ON GREATNESS. 
 
 BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAI'F, ESQ. 
 
 We have raore than once, in the course of our work, been 
 most jocosely familiar with great personages ; and, in truth, 
 treated them with as little ceremony, respect, and considera- 
 tion, as if they had been our most particular friends. Now, 
 we would not suffer the mortification of having our readers 
 even suspect us of an intimacy of the kind; assuring them 
 we are extremely choice in our intimates, and uncommonly 
 circumspect in avoiding connections with all doubtful char- 
 acters; particularly pimps, bailiffs, lottery -brokers, chevaliers 
 of industry, and great men. The world, in general, is pretty 
 well aware of what is to be imderstood by the former classes 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 203 
 
 of delinquents; but as the latter has never, I believe, been 
 specifically defined; and as we are determined to instruct 
 our readers to the extent of our abilities, and their limited 
 comprehension, it may not be amiss here to let them know 
 what we understand by a great man. 
 
 First, therefore, let us — editors and kings are always plural 
 — premise, that there are two kinds of greatness, — one con- 
 ferred by heaven — the exalted nobihty of the soul ; — ^the other, 
 a spurious distinction, engendered by the mob and lavished 
 upon its favourites. The former of these distinctions we have 
 always contemplated with reverence ; the latter, we wiU take 
 this opportunity to strip naked before our unenlightened read- 
 ers ; so that if by chance any of them are held in ignominious 
 ttiraldrom. by this base circulation of false coin, they may 
 forthwith emancipate themselves from such inglorious delu- 
 sion. 
 
 It is a fictitious value given to individuals by public caprice, 
 as bankers give an impression to a worthless slip of paper ; 
 thereby gaining it a currency for infinitely more than its 
 intrinsic value. Every nation has its peculiar coin, and 
 peculiar great men ; neither of which wiU, for the most part, 
 pass current out of the country where they ace stamped. 
 Tour true mob-created great man, is like a note of one of the 
 little New-England banks, and his value depreciates in propor- 
 tion to the distance from home. In England a great man is he 
 who has most ribands and gew-gaws on his coat, most horses 
 to his carriage, most slaves in his retinue, or most toad-eaters 
 at his table ; in France, he who can most dexterously flourish 
 
 his heels above his head Duport is most incontestably the 
 
 greatest man in France! — when the emperor is absent. The 
 greatest man in China is he who can trace his ancestry up to 
 the moon; and in this country, our great men may generally 
 hunt down their pedigree until it burrows in the dii-t like a 
 rabbit. To be concise ; our great men are those who are most 
 expert at crawling on all fours, and have the happiest facility 
 in dragging and winding themselves along in the dirt like very 
 reptiles. This may seem a paradox to many of my readers, 
 who, with great good-nature be it hinted, are too stupid to 
 look beyond the mere surface of our invaluable writings; 
 and often pass over the knowing allusion, and poignant mean- 
 ing, that ' is slily couching beneath. It is for the benefit of 
 such helpless ignorants, who have no other creed but the 
 opinion of the mob, that I shall trace— as far as it is possible 
 
204 SALMA G UNDI. 
 
 to follow him in Ms progress from insignificance — ^the rise, 
 progress, and completion of a little great man. 
 
 In a logocracy, to use the sage Mustapha's phrase, it is not 
 absolutely necessary to the formation of a great man that he 
 should be either wise or valiant, upright or honourable. On 
 the contrary, daily experience shows that these qualities 
 rather impede his preferment ; inasmuch as they are prone to 
 render him too iaflexibly erect, and are directly at variance 
 with that willowy suppleness which enables a man to wind 
 and twist through all the nooks and turns and dark winding 
 passages that lead to greatness. The gi'and requisite for 
 climbing the rugged hiU of popularity, — the summit of which 
 is the seat of power,— is to be useful. And here once more, for 
 the sake of our readers, who are, of course, not so wise as our- 
 selves, I must explain what we understand by usefulness. 
 The horse, in his native state, is wUd, swift, impetuous, full of 
 majesty, and of a most generous spirit. It is then the animal 
 is ncble, exalted, and useless. — But entrap him, manacle him, 
 cudgel him, break down his lofty spirit, put the curb into his 
 mouth, the load upon his back, and reduce him into servile 
 obedience to the bridle and the lash, and it is then he becomes 
 useful. Your jackass is one of the most useful animals in 
 existence. If my readers do not now understand what I mean 
 by usefulness, I give them aU up for most absolute nincoms. 
 
 To rise in this country, a man must first descend. The 
 aspiring politician may be compared to that indefatigable 
 insect called the tumbler ; pronounced by a distinguished per- 
 sonage to be the only industrious animal in Virginia, which 
 buries itself in filth, and works ignobly in the dirt, until it 
 forms a little ball, which it rolls laboriously along, like 
 Diogenes in his tub ; sometimes head, sometimes tail foremost, 
 pilfering from every rut and mud-hole, and increasing its ball 
 of greatness by the contributions of the kennel. Just so the 
 candidate for greatness ;— he plunges into that mass of ob- 
 scenity, the mob; labours in dirt and obhvion, and makes 
 unto himself the rudiments of a popular name from the ad- 
 miration and praises of rogues, ignoramuses, and blackguards. 
 His name once started, onward he goes strugghng, and puffing, 
 and pushing it before him; collecting new tributes from the 
 dregs and offals of the land, as he proceeds, until having 
 gathered together a mighty mass of popularity, he mounts it 
 in triumph; is hoisted into office, and becomes a great man, 
 and a ruler in the land; — all this will be clearly illustrated by 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 205 
 
 a sketch of a worthy of the kind, who sprung up under my 
 eye, and was hatched from pollution by the broad rays of 
 popularity, which, like the sim, can "breed maggots in a dead 
 dog." 
 
 Timothy Dabble was a young man of very promising 
 talents ; for he wrote a fair hand, and had thrice won the silver 
 medal at a country academy; — he was also an orator, for he 
 talked with emphatic volubihty, and could argue a full hour, 
 without taking either side, or advancing a single opinion ; — he 
 had still further requisites for eloquence ; — for he made very 
 handsome gestures, had dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, 
 and enunciated most harmoniously through his nose. In 
 short, nature had certainly marked him out for a great man ; 
 for though he was not tall, yet he added at least half an inch 
 to his stature by elevating his head, and assumed an amazing 
 expression of dignity by turning up his nose and curling his 
 nostrils in a style of conscious superiority. Convinced by 
 these unequivocal appearances. Babble's friends, in full caucus, 
 one and all, declared that he was undoubtedly bom to be a 
 great man; and it would be his own fault if he were not one. 
 Dabble was tickled with an opinion which coincided so happily 
 with his own, — for vanity, in a confidential whisper, had given 
 \\\vn the like intimation; — and he reverenced the judgment of 
 his friends because they thought so highly of himself ; — accord- 
 ingly he set out with a determination to become a great man, 
 and to start in the scrub-race for honour and renown. How 
 to attain the desired prizes was, however, the question. He 
 knew by a kind of instinctive feeling, which seems peculiar to 
 grovelling minos, that honour, and its better part — profit, 
 would never seek him out ; that they would never knock at 
 his door and crave admittance ; but must be courted, and toiled 
 after, and earned. He therefore strutted forth into the high- 
 ways, the market-places, and the assemblies of the people; 
 ranted like a true cockerel orator about virtue, and patriotism, 
 and Uberty, and equality, and himself. FnU many a political 
 wind-miU did he battle with; and full many a time did he talk 
 himself out of breath and his hearers out of their patience. 
 But Dabble found, to his vast astonishment, that there was not 
 a notorious poUtical pimp at a ward meeting but could out- 
 talk him ; and what wa& still more mortifying, there was not a 
 notorious poKtical pimp but was more noticed and caressed 
 than himself. The reason was simple enough; while he 
 harangued about principles, the others ranted about men; 
 
206 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 where he reprobated a political error, they blasted a political 
 character ; — they were consequently, the most useful ; for the 
 great object of our poUtical disputes is not who shaU have the 
 honor of emancipating the community from the leading strings 
 of delusion, but who shall have the profit of holding the 
 strings and leading the conunuuity by the nose. 
 
 Dabble was likewise very loud in his professions of integ- 
 rity, incorruptibility, and disinterestedness ; words which, from 
 being filtered and refined through newspapers and election 
 handbills, have lost their original signification; and in the 
 pohtical dictionary are synonymous with empty pockets, 
 itching pahns, and interested ambition. He, in addition to 
 all this, declared that he would support none but honest men; 
 — but unluckily as but few of these offered themselves to be 
 supported, Babble's services were seldom required. He pledged 
 himself never to engage in party schemes, or party politics, 
 but to stand up solely for the broad interests of Ms country ; — 
 so he stood alone ; and what is the same thing, he stood still ; 
 for, in this country, he who does not side with either party, is 
 like a body in a vacuum between two planets, and must for ever 
 remain motionless. 
 
 Dabble was immeasurably surprised that a man so honest, so 
 disinterested, and so sagacious withal, — and one too who had 
 the good of his country so much at heart, should thus remain 
 unnoticed and unapplauded. A little worldly advice, whis- 
 pered in his ear by a shrewd old politician, at once explained 
 the whole mystery. " He who would become great," said he, 
 ' ' must serve an apprenticeship to greatness ; and rise by regular 
 gradation, like the master of a vessel, who commences by being 
 scrub and cabin-boy. He must fag in the train of great men, 
 echo all their sentiments, become their toad-eater and parasite ; 
 — laugh at all their jokes, and above all, endeavour to make 
 them laugh; if you only now and then nake a man laugh, 
 your fortune is made. Look but about you, youngster, and 
 you will not see a single little great man of the day, but has 
 his miserable herd of retainers, who yelp at his heels, come at 
 his whistle, worry whoever he points his finger at, and think 
 themselves fully rewarded by sometime snapping up a crumb 
 that falls from the great man's table. Talk of patriotism and 
 virtue, and incorruptibiUty ! — tut, nim! they are the very 
 quahties that scare munificence, and keep patronage at a dis- 
 tance. You might as well attempt io entice crows with red 
 rags and gunpowder. Lay all thesii scarecrow virtues aside, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 207 
 
 and let this be your maxim, that a candidate for political 
 eminence is like a dried herring ; he never becomes luminous 
 until he is corrupt." 
 
 Dabble caught with hungry avidity these congenial doc- 
 trines, and turned into his pre-destined channel of action with 
 the force and rapidity of a stream which has for a while been 
 restrained from its natural course. He became what nature 
 had fitted him to be ; — ^his tone softened down from arrogant 
 self-sufficiency, to the whine of fawning solicitation. He min- 
 gled in the caucuses of the sovereign people ; adapted his dress 
 to a similitude of dirty raggedness ; argued most logically with 
 those who were of his own opinion ; and slandered, with aU the 
 mahce of impotence, exalted characters whose orbit he de- 
 spaired ever to approach: — just as that scoundrel midnight 
 thief, the owl, hoots at the blessed light of the sun, whose 
 glorious lustre he dares never contemplate. He hkewise ap- 
 plied himself to discharging, faithfully, the honourable duties 
 of a partizan; — he poached about for private slanders and 
 ribald anecdotes; — he folded handbills; — he even wrote one or 
 two himself, which he carried about in his pocket and read to 
 every body ; — he became a secretary at ward-meetings, set his 
 hand to divers resolutions of patriotic import, and even once 
 went so far as to make a speech, in which he proved that patri- 
 otism was a virtue; — the reigning bashaw a great man;— that 
 this was a free coimtry, and he himself an arrant and incon- 
 testable buzzard ! 
 
 Dabble was now very frequent and devout in his visits to 
 those temples of politics, popularity, and smoke, the ward 
 porter-houses ; those true dens of equality where aU ranks, ages, 
 and talents are brought down to the dead level of rude famil- 
 iarity. 'Twas here his talents expanded, and his genius swelled 
 up into its proper size ; hke the loathsome toad, which, shrink- 
 ing from balmy airs and jocund sunshine, finds his congenial 
 home in caves and dungeons, and there nourishes his venom, 
 and bloats his deformity, 'Twas here he revelled jnth the 
 swinish multitude in their debauches on patriotism and porter; 
 and it became an even chance whether Dabble would turn out 
 a great man or a great drunkard. But Dabble in all this kept 
 steadily in his eye the only deity he ever worshipped— his in- 
 terest. Having by this familiarity ingratiated himself with the 
 mob, he became wonderfully potent and industrious at elec- 
 tions ; knew all the dens and cellars of profligacy and intem- 
 perance; brought more negroes to the polls, and knew to a 
 
208 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 greater certainty where votes could be bought for beer, than 
 any of his contemporaries. His exertions in the cause, his 
 persevering industry, his degrading comphance, his unresist- 
 ing humility, his steadfast dependence, at length caught the 
 attention of one of the leaders of the party ; who was pleased 
 to observe that Dabble was a very useful feUow, who would go 
 all lengths. From that moment his fortune was made;— he 
 was hand and glove with orators and slang- whangers ; basked 
 in the sunshine of great men's smiles, and had the honour, sun- 
 dry times, of shaking hands with dignitaries, and drinking out 
 of the same pot with them at a porter-house ! ! 
 
 I will not fatigue myself with tracing this caterpillar in his 
 slimy progress from worm to butterfly : suffice it that Dabble 
 bowed and bowed, and fawned, and sneaked, and smirked, 
 and libelled, until one would have thought perseverance itself 
 would have settled down into despair. There was no knowing 
 how long he might have hngered at a distance from his hopes, 
 had he not luckily got tarred and feathered for some of his 
 electioneering manoeuvres ;— this was the making of him ! — Let 
 not my readers stare ;— tarring and feathering here is equal to 
 pillory and cropped ears in English ; and either of these kinds 
 of martyrdom will ensure a patriot the sympathy and support 
 of his faction. His partizans, for even he had his partizans, 
 took his case into consideration;— he had been kicked and 
 cuffed, and disgraced, and dishonoured in the cause ;— he had 
 licked the dust at the feet of the mob;— he was a faithful 
 drudge, slow to anger, of invincible patience, of incessant 
 assiduity; — a thorough-going tool, who could be curbed, and 
 spurred, and directed at pleasure ;— in short, he had all the im- 
 portant qualifications for a httle great man, and he was ac- 
 cordingly ushered into office amid the acclamations of the 
 party. The leading men complimented his usefulness, the 
 multitude his republican simphcity, and the slang-whangers 
 vouched for his patriotism. Since his elevation he has dis- 
 covered indubitable signs of having been destined for a great 
 man. His nose has acquired an additional elevation of several 
 degrees, so that now he appears to have bidden adieu to this 
 world and to have set his thoughts altogether on things above ; 
 and he has swelled and inflated himself to such a degree, that 
 his friends are under apprehensions that he wfll one day or 
 other explode and blow up Uke a torpedo. 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 209 
 
 NO. XVI.-THUESDAY, OCT. 15, 1807. 
 
 STYLE, AT BALLSTON. 
 
 BY WILLIAM -WIZAED, ESQ. 
 
 Notwithstanding Evergreen has never been abroad, nor had 
 his understanding enlightened, or his views enlarged by that 
 marvellous sharpener of the wits, a salt-water voyage ; yet he 
 is tolerably shrewd, and correct, in the limited sphere of his 
 observations; and now and then astounds me with a right 
 pithy remark, which would do no discredit even to a man who 
 had made the grand tour. 
 
 In several late conversations at Cockloft-Hall, he has amused 
 us exceedingly by detailing sundry particulars concerning that 
 notorious slaughter-house of time, BaUston Springs ; where he 
 spent a considerable part of the last summer. The following 
 is a summary of his observations. 
 
 Pleasure has passed through a variety of significations at 
 Ballston. It originally meant nothing more than a relief from 
 pain and sickness ; and the patient who had journeyed many 
 a weary mile to the Springs, with a heavy heart and emaciated 
 form, called it pleasure when he threw by his crutches, and 
 danced away from them with renovated spirits and limbs 
 jocund with vigour. In process of time pleasure underwent a 
 refinement, and appeared in the likeness of a sober, tuiceremo- 
 nious country-dance, to the flute of an amateur or the three- 
 stringed fiddle of an itinerant country musician. — Still every 
 thing bespoke that happy holiday which the spirits ever enjoy, 
 when emancipated from the shackles of formality, ceremony, 
 and modern pohteness: things went on cheerily, and Ballston 
 was pronounced a charming, hum-drum, careless place of re- 
 sort, where every one was at his ease, and might follow unmo- 
 lested the bent of his humour— provided his wife was not there ; 
 
210 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 — when, lo ! all on a sudden Style made its baneful appearance 
 in the semblance of a gig and tandem, a pair of leather breeches, 
 a liveried footman, and a cockney ! — since that fatal era pleas- 
 ure has taken an entire new signification, and at present means 
 nothing but styie. 
 
 The worthy, fashionable, dashing, good-for-nothing people of 
 every state, who had rather suffer the martyrdom of a crowd 
 than endure the monotony of their own homes and the stupid 
 company of their own thoughts, flock to the Springs ; not to enjoy 
 the pleasures of society or benefit by the quahties of the waters, 
 but to exhibit their equipages and wardrobes, and to excite 
 the admiretion, or what is much more satisfactory, the envy of 
 their fashionable competitors. This, of course, awakens a spirit 
 of noble emulation between the eastern, middle, and southern 
 states ; and every lady hereupon finding herself charged ia a 
 manner with the whole weight of her country's dignity and 
 style, dresses and dashes and sparkles without mercy at her 
 competitors from other parts of the Union. This kind of rival- 
 ship naturally requires a vast deal of preparation and pro- 
 digious quantities of suppMes. A sober citizen's wife will break 
 half a dozen milliners' shops, and sometimes starve her family 
 a whole season, to enable herself to make the Springs campaign 
 in style. — She repairs to the seat of war with a mighty force of 
 trunks and bandboxes, hke so many ammunition chests, filled 
 with caps, hats, gowns, ribands, shawls, and all the various 
 artillery of fashionable warfare. The lady of a southern planter 
 will lay out the whole annual produce of a rice plantation in 
 silver and gold muslins, lace veils, and new liveries ; carry a 
 hogshead of tobacco on her head, and trail a bale of sea-island 
 cotton at her heels, while a lady of Boston or Salem will wrap 
 herself up in the net proceeds of a cargo of whale-oil, and tie on 
 her hat with a quintal of codfish. 
 
 The planters' ladies, however, have generally the advantage 
 in this contest ; for, as it is an incontestable fact, that whoever 
 comeo from the West or East Indies, or Georgia, or the Caro- 
 linas, or, in fact, any warm cHmate, is immensely rich, it can- 
 not be expected that a simple cit of the north can cope with 
 them in style. The planter, therefore, who drives four horses 
 abroad and a thousand negroes at home, and who flourishes up 
 to the Springs, followed by half a score of black-a-moors in 
 gorgeous liveries, is unquestionably superior to the northern 
 merchant, who plods on in a carriage and pair ; which, being 
 nothing more than is quite necessary, has no claim whatever 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 211 
 
 to stylo. He, however, lias his consolation in feeling superior 
 to the honest cit who dashes about in a simple gig: — he, in re- 
 turn, sneers at the country squire, who jogs along with his 
 scrubby, long-eared pony and saddle-bags ; and the squire, by 
 way of taking satisfaction, would make no scruple to run over 
 the unobtrusive pedestrian, were it not that the last being the 
 most independent of the whole, might chance to break his head 
 by way of retort. 
 
 The great misfortune is, that this style is supported at such 
 an expense as sometimes to encroach on the rights and privi- 
 leges of the pocket, and occasion very awkward embarrass- 
 ments to the tyro of fashion. Among a number of instances, 
 Evergreen mentions the fate of a dashing blade from the south, 
 who made his entree with a tandem and two out-riders, by the 
 aid of which he attracted the attention of aU the ladies, and 
 caused a coolness between several young couples, who, it was 
 thought, before his arrival, had a considerable kindness for 
 each other. In the course of a fortnight his tandem disap- 
 peared ! — the class of good folk who seem to have nothing to do 
 in this world but pry into other people's aflEairs, began to stare ! 
 — in a little time longer an outrider was missing ! — this increased 
 the alarm, and it was consequently whispered that he had eaten 
 the horses and drank the negro. — N. B. Southern gentlemen 
 are very apt to do this on an emergency.— Serious apprehen- 
 sions were entertained about the fate of the remaining servant, 
 which were soon verified by his actually vanishing; and, in 
 "one httle month," the dashing Carolinian modestly took his 
 departure in the stage-coach! — universally regretted by the 
 friends who had generously released him from his cumbrous 
 load of style. 
 
 Evergreen, in the course of his detail, gave very melancholy 
 accounts of an alarming famine which raged with great vio- 
 lence at the Springs. Whether this was owing to the incredi- 
 ble appetites of the company, or the scarcity which prevailed 
 at the inns, he did not seem inchned to say ; but he declares 
 that he was for several days in imminent danger of starvation, 
 owing to his being a little too dilatory in his attendance at the 
 dinner-table. He relates a number of "moving accidents" 
 which" bef eU many of the polite company in their zeal to get a 
 good seat at dinner; on which occasion a kind of scrub-race 
 always took place, wherein a vast deal of jockeying and unfair 
 play was shown, and a variety of squabbles and unseemly 
 altercations occurred. But when arrived at the scene of action, 
 
212 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 it was truly an awful sight to behold the confusion, and to heai 
 the tumultuous uproar of voices crying, some for one thing 
 and some for another, to the tuneful accompaniment of knives 
 and forks, rattling with all the energy of hungry impatience. 
 — The feast of the Centaurs and the Lapithse was nothing 
 when compared with a dinner at the great house. At one time 
 an old gentleman, whose natural irascibility was a little sharp'- 
 ened by the gout, had scalded his throat by gobbhng down a 
 bowl of hot soup in a vast hurry, in order to secure the first 
 fruits of a roasted partridge before it was snapped up by some 
 hungry rival; when, just as he was whetting his knife and 
 fork, preparatory for a descent on the promised land, he had 
 the mortification to see it transferred bodily to the plate of a 
 squeamish little damsel who was taking the waters for debility 
 and loss of appetite. This was too much for the patience of 
 old crusty ; he lodged his fork into the partridge, whipt it into 
 his dish, and cutting off a wing of it, — "There, Miss, there's 
 more than you can eat. — Oons ! what should such a little chalky- 
 faced puppet as you do with a whole partridge !" — At another 
 time a mighty, sweet-disposed old dowagei', who loomed most 
 magnificently at the table, had a sauce-boat launched upon the 
 capacious lap of a silver-sprigged muslin gown by the ma- 
 ncevring of a little politic Frenchman, who was dexterously at- 
 tempting to make a lodgment under the covered way of a 
 chicken-pye; — human nature could not bear it! — the lady 
 bounced round, and, with one box on the ear, drove the luck- 
 less wight to utter annihilation. 
 
 But these little cross accidents are amply compensated by 
 the great variety of amusements which abound at this charm- 
 ing resort of beauty and fashion. In the morning the com- 
 pany, each like a joUy Bacchanalian with glass in hand, sally 
 forth to the Springs: where the gentlemen, who wish tp make 
 themselves agreeable, have an opportunity of dipping them- 
 selves into the good opinion of the ladies : and it is truly de- 
 lectable to see with what grace and adroitness they perform 
 this ingratiating feat. Anthony says that it is pectdiarly 
 amazing to behold the quantity of water the ladies drink on 
 this occasion for the purpose of getting an appetite for break- 
 fast. He assures me he has been present when a young lady 
 of unparalleled delicacy tossed off in the space of a minute or 
 two one and twenty timiblers and a wine-glass full. On my 
 asking Anthony whether the solicitude of the by-standers was 
 not greatly awakened as to what might be the effects of this 
 
SALMAGUNDI. Si 3 
 
 debauch, he replied that the ladies at Ballston had hecomo 
 such great sticklers for the doctrine of evaporation, that no 
 gentleman ever ventured to remonstrate against this excessive 
 drinking for fear of bringing his philosophy into contempt. 
 Tlie most notorious water-drinkers in particular were continu- 
 ally holding for'th on the surprising aptitude with which the 
 Ballston waters evaporated ; £md several gentlemen, who had 
 the hardihood to question this female philosophy, were held in 
 high displeasure. 
 
 After breakfast every one chooses his amusement ;— some 
 take a ride into the pine woods and enjoy the varied and ro- 
 mantic scenery of burnt trees, post and rail fences, pine flats, 
 potato patches, and log huts; — others scramble up the sur- 
 rounding sand-hills, that look Hke the abodes of a gigantic race 
 of ants;— take a peep at the other sand-hills beyond them; — 
 aud then — come doivn again: others, who are romantic, and 
 sundry young ladies insist upon being so whenever they visit 
 the Springs, or go any where into the country, stroll along the 
 borders of a httle swampy brook that drags itself along like 
 an Alexandrine ; and that so lazUy as not to m.£ike a single 
 murmur ;— watching the little tadpoles as they frolic, right flip- 
 pantly, in the muddy stream; and Kstening to the inspiring 
 melody of the harmonious frogs that croak upon its borders. 
 Some play at bilUards, some play at the fiddle, and some — play 
 the fool; — the latter being the most prevalent amusement at 
 BaUston. 
 
 These, together with abundance of dancing, and a prodigious 
 deal of sleeping of afternoons, make up the variety of pleasures 
 at the Springs; — a dehcious life of alternate lassitude and 
 fatigue ; of laborious dissipation and hstless idleness ; of sleep- 
 less nights, and days spent in that dozing insensibihty which 
 ever succeeds them. Now and then, indeed, the influenza, the 
 fever-and-ague, or some such pale-faced intruder, may happen 
 to throw a momentary damp on the general felicity ; but on 
 the whole. Evergreen declares that Ballston wants only six 
 things, to wit: good air, good wine, good living, good beds, 
 good company, and good humour, to be the most enchanting 
 
 place in the world; excepting Botany- bay, Musquito Cove, 
 
 Dismal Swamp, and the Black-hole at Calcutta. 
 
214 EALMAGUIs'DI. 
 
 The following letter from tho sage Mustapha has cost us 
 more trouble to decypher and render into tolerable English 
 than any hitherto published. It was full of blots and erasures, 
 particularly the latter part, which we have no doubt was 
 penned in a moment of great wrath and indignation. Mus- 
 tapha has often a rambling mode of writing, and his thoughts 
 take such unaccountable turns that it is diflacult to tell one 
 moment where he wiU lead you the next. This is particularly 
 obvious in the commencement of his letters, which seldom 
 bear much analogy to the subsequent parts ; — he sets oflE with 
 a flourish, like a dramatic hero, — assumes an air of great pom- 
 posity, and struts up to his subject mounted most loftily on 
 stilts. L. Langstaff. 
 
 LETTEE FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI EHAN, 
 
 TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS 
 THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLL 
 
 Among the variety of principles by which mankind are 
 actuated, thei-e is one, my dear Asem, which I scarcely know 
 whether to consider as springing from grandeur and nobility 
 of mind, or from a refined species of vanity and egotism. It is 
 that singular, although almost universal, desire of living in the 
 memory of posterity ; of occupying a share of the world's at- 
 tention when we shall long since have ceased to be susceptible 
 either of its praise or censure. Most of the passions of the 
 mind are bounded by the grave ; — sometunes, indeed, an anx- 
 ious hope or trembling fear wUl venture beyond the clouds 
 and darkness that rest upon our mortal hoi-izon, and expatiate 
 in boundless futurity ; but it is only this active love of fame 
 which steadily contemplates its fruition in the applause or 
 gratitude of future ages. Indignant at the narrow limits which 
 circumscribe existence, ambition is for ever struggling to soar 
 beyond them ; — to triumph over space and time, and to bear a 
 name, at least, above the inevitable oblivion in which every 
 thing else that concerns us must be involved. It is this, my 
 friend, which prompts the patriot to his most heroic achieve- 
 ments ; which inspires the sublimest strains of the poet, and 
 breathes ethereal fire into the productions of the painter and 
 the statuary. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 215 
 
 For this the monarch rears the lofty cohitnn ; the laurelled 
 conqueror claims the triumphal arch ; while the obscure indi- 
 vidual, who moved in an humbler sphere, asks but a plain 
 and simple stone to mark his grave and bear to the next gen- 
 eration this important truth, that he was born, died — and was 
 buried. It was this passion which once erected the vast Nu- 
 midian piles, whose ruins we have so often regarded with won- 
 der, as the shades of evening — fit emblems of oblivion— gradu- 
 ally stole over and enveloped them in darkness. — It was this 
 which gave being to those sublime monuments of Saracen mag- 
 nificence, which nod in mouldering desolation, as the blast 
 
 sweeps over our deserted plains. How futile are all our 
 
 efforts to evade the obliterating hand of time ! As I traversed 
 the dreary wastes of Egypt, on my journey to Grand Cairo, I 
 stopped my camel for a while and contemplated, in awful ad- 
 miration, the stupendous pyramids. — An appalling silence pre- 
 vailed around ; such as reigns in the wilderness when the 
 tempest is hushed and the beasts of prey have retu'ed to their 
 dens. The myriads that had once been employed in rearing 
 these lofty mementoes of human vanity, whose busy hum once 
 enhvened the solitude of the desert,— had all been swejDt from 
 the earth by the irresistible arm of death;— all were mingled 
 with their native dust ; — all were forgotten ! Even the mighlly 
 names which these sepulchres were designed to perpetuate had 
 long since faded from remembrance; history and tradition 
 afforded but vague conjectures, and the pyramids imparted a 
 
 humUiating lesson to the candidate for immortality. Alas! 
 
 alas! said I to myself, how mutable are the foundations on 
 which our proudest hopes of future fame are reposed ! He who 
 itnagtues he has secured to himself the meed of deathless re- 
 nown, indulges in deluding visions, which only bespeak the 
 vanity of the dreamer. The storied obelisk,— the triumphal 
 arch, — the swelling dome, shall crumble into dust, and the 
 names they would preserve from obhvion shall often pass away 
 before their own duration is accompHshed. 
 
 Yet this passion for fame, however ridiculous in the eye of 
 the philosopher, deserves respect and consideration, from hav- 
 ing been the source of so many illustrious actions ; and hence 
 it has been the practice in all enlightened governments to per- 
 petuate, by monuments, the memory of great men, as a testi- 
 mony of respect for the illustrious dead, and to awaken in the 
 bosoms of posterity an emulation to merit the same honourable 
 distinction. The people of the American logocracj;, who pride 
 
316 SALMAOUNDt. 
 
 themselves upon improving on every precept or example of 
 ancient or modern governments, have discovered a new mode 
 of exciting this love of glory ; a mode by which they do honour 
 to their great men, even in their lifetime ! 
 
 Thou must have observed by this time that they manage 
 every thing in a manner peculiar to themselves ; and doubtless 
 in the best possible manner, seeing they have denominated 
 themselves "the most enhghtened people under the sun." 
 Thou wilt therefore, perhaps, be curious to know how they 
 contrive to honour the name of a Uving patriot, and what un- 
 heard-of monument they erect in memory of his achievements. 
 — By the fiery beard of the mighty Barbarossa, but I can 
 scarcely preserve the sobriety of a true disciple of Mahomet 
 whUe I tell thee ! — wilt thou not smQe, Mussulman of invin- 
 cible gravity, to learn that they honour their great raen by 
 eating, and that the only trophy erected to their exploits is a 
 public dinner 1 But, trust me, Asem, even in this measure, 
 whimsical as it may seem, the philosophic and considerate 
 spirit of this people is admirably displayed. Wisely conclud- 
 ing that when the hero is dead he becomes insensible to the 
 voice of fame, the song of adulation, or the splendid trophy, 
 they have determined that he shall enjoy his quantum of celeb- 
 rity while living, and revel in the full enjoyment of a nine- 
 days' immortality. The barbarous nations of antiquity im- 
 molated human victims to the memory of their lamented dead, 
 but the enlightened Americans offer up whole hecatombs of 
 geese and calves, and oceans of wine, in honour of the illustri- 
 ous living; and the patriot has the felicity of hearing from 
 every quarter the vast exploits in gluttony and revelHng that 
 have been celebrated to the glory of his name. 
 
 No sooner does a citizen signalize himself in a conspicuous 
 manner in the service of his country, than all the gormandi- 
 zers assemble and discharge the national debt of gratitude— 
 by giving him a dinner;— not that he really receives all the 
 luxuries provided on this occasion; — no, my friend, it is ten 
 chances to one that the great man does not taste a morsel from 
 the table, and is, perhaps, five hundred miles distant ; and, to 
 let thee into a melancholy fact, a patriot under this economic 
 government, may be often in want of a dinner, while dozens 
 are devoured in his praise. Neither are these repasts spread 
 out for the hungry and necessitous, who might otherwise be 
 filled with food and gladness, and inspired to shout forth the 
 illustrious ,name, which had been the means of their enjoy- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 217 
 
 ment; — far 'from this, Asem; it is the rich only who indulge 
 in the banquet ;— those who pay for the dainties are alone 
 privileged to enjoy them; so that, while opening their purses 
 in honour of the patriot, they at the same time fulfil a great 
 maxim, which in thl3 country comprehends all the rules of 
 prudence, and all the duties a man owes to himself ;— namely, 
 getting the worth of their money. 
 
 In process of time this mode of testifying public applause 
 has been found so marvellously agreeable, that they extend it 
 to events as well as characters, and eat in triumph at the news 
 of a treaty,— at the anniversary of any grand national era, or 
 at the gaining of that splendid victory of the tongue — an 
 election.— Nay, so far do they carry it, that certain days are 
 set apart when the guzzlers, the gormandizers, and the wine- 
 bibbere meet together to celebrate a grand indigestion, in 
 memory of some great event ; and every man in the zeal of 
 patriotism gets devoutly drunk — "as the act directs. "—Then, 
 my friend, mayest thou behold the sublime spectacle of love 
 of coimtry, elevating itself from a sentiment into an appetite, 
 whetted to the quick with the cheering prospect of tables 
 loaded with the fat things of the land. On this occasion eveiy 
 man is anxious to fall to work, cram himself in honour of the 
 day, and risk a surfeit in the glorious cause. Some, I have 
 been told, actually fast for four and twenty hours preceding, 
 that they may be enabled to do greater honour to the f ea%t ; 
 and certainly, if eating and drinking are patriotic rites, he who 
 eats and drinks most, and proves himself the greatest glutton, 
 is, imdoubtedly, the most distinguished patriot. Such, at any 
 rate, seems to be the opinion here, and they act up to it so 
 rigidly, that by the time it is dark, every kennel in the neigh- 
 bourhood teams with illustrious members of the sovereign 
 people, wallowing in their congenial element of mud and mire. 
 
 These patriotic feasts, or rather national monuments, are 
 patronized and promoted by certain inferior cadis, called Al- 
 dermen, who are commonly complimented with their direc- 
 tion.. These dignitaries, as far as I can learn, are generally 
 appointed on account of their great talents for eating, a quali- 
 fication peculiarly necessary in the discharge of their official 
 duties. They hold frequent meetings at taverns and hotels, 
 where they enter into solemn consultations for the benefit of 
 lobsters and turtles ;— establish wholesome regulations for the 
 safety and preservation of fish and wOd-f owl ;— appoint the 
 iiiiBeasons most proper for eating oysters; — mquire into the 
 
2 1 S SALMA O UADI. 
 
 economy of taverns, the characters of publicans, and the 
 abilities of their cooks; and discuss, most learnedly, the merits 
 of a bowl of soup, a chicken-pye, or a haunch of venison : in a 
 word, the alderman has absolute control in all matters of eat- 
 ing, and superintends the whole police— of the belly. Having, 
 in the prosecution of their important oflSce, signalized them- 
 selves at so many pubhc festivals ; having gorged so often on 
 patriotism and pudding, and entombed so many great names 
 in their extensive maws, thou wUt easily conceive that they 
 wax portly apace, that they fatten on the fame of mighty 
 men, and that their rotundity, like the rivers, the lakes, and 
 the mountains of their country, must be on a great scale 1 Even, 
 so, my friend ; and when I sometimes see a portly alderman, 
 puffing along, and swelling as if he had the world under his 
 waistcoat, I cannot help looking upon him as a walking monu- 
 ment, and am often ready to exclaim — " Tell me, thou majes- 
 tic mortal, thou breathing catacomb! — to what illustrious 
 character, what mighty event, does that capacious carcass of 
 thine bear testimony?" 
 
 But though the enlightened citizens of this logocracy eat in 
 'honour of their friends, yet they drink destruction to their 
 enemies. — Yea, Asem, wo unto those who are doomed to 
 undergo the public vengeance, at a public dinner. No sooner 
 are the viands removed, than they prepare for merciless and 
 ex1;erminating hostilities. They drink the intoxicating juice 
 of the grape, out of little glass cups, and over each draught 
 pronounce a short sentence or prayer;— not such a prayer as 
 thy virtuous heart would dictate, thy pious lips give utterance 
 to, my good Asem; — not a tribute of thanks to all bountiful 
 Allah, nor a humble supplication for his blessing on the 
 draught;— no, my friend, it is merely a toast, that is to say, a 
 fulsome tribute of flattery to their demagogues ;— a laboured 
 saJly of affected sentiment or national egotism.; or, what is 
 more despicable, a malediction on their enemies, an empty 
 threat of vengeance, or a petition for their destruction; foi* 
 toasts, thou must know, are another kind of missive w^pon 
 in a logocracy, and are levelled from afar, like the annoying 
 arrows of the Tartars. 
 
 Oh, Asem! couldst thou but witness one of these patriotic, 
 thesb monumental dinners : how furiously the flame of patriot- 
 ism blazes forth;— how siiddenly they vanquish armies, sub- 
 jugate whole countries, and exterminate nations in a bumper, 
 thou wouldst more than ever admire the force of that ommpo« 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 219 
 
 tent weapon, the tongue. At these moments every coward 
 becomes a hero, every ragamuflan an invincible warrior; and 
 the most zealous votaries of peace and quiet, forget, for a 
 whUe, their cherished maxims, and join in the furious attack. 
 Toast succeeds toast ;— kings, emperors, bashaws, are hke chafiE 
 before the tempest; the inspired patriot vanquishes fleets with 
 a single gun-boat, and swallows down navies at a draught, 
 imtil, overpowered with victory and wine, he sinks upon the 
 fleld of battle— dead drunk in his coimtry's cause.— Sword of 
 the puissant Khalid! what a display of valour is here!— the 
 sons of Afric are hardy, brave, and enterprising, but they can 
 achieve nothing like this. 
 
 Happy would it be if this mania for toasting extended no 
 further than to the expression of national resentment. Though 
 we might smile at the impotent vapouring and windy hyper- 
 bole, by which it is distinguished, yet we would excuse it, as 
 the unguarded overflowings of a neart glowing with national 
 injuries, and indignant at the insults offered to its country. 
 But alas, my friend, private resentment, individual hatred, 
 and the lUibeTal spirit of party, are let loose on these festive 
 occasions. Even the names of individuals, of unoffending, 
 feUow-citizens, are sometimes dragged forth to undergo the 
 slanders and execrations of a distempered herd of revellers.* — 
 Head of Mahomet ! how vindictive, how insatiably vindictive 
 must be that spirit which can drug the manthng bowl with 
 gall and bitterness, and indulge an angry passion in the 
 moment of rejoicing! — "Wine," says their poet, "is like sun- 
 shine to the heart, which under its generous influence expands 
 the good-will, and becomes the very temple of philanthropy." 
 — Strange, that in a temple consecrated to such a divinity, there 
 should remain a secret comer, polluted by the lurkings of 
 malice and revenge ; strange, that in the full flow of social en- 
 joyment, these votaries of pleasure can turn aside to call down 
 curses on the head of a fellow-creature. Despicable souls ! ye 
 
 NOTE BY WILLIAM WIZAED, ESQ. 
 * It would seem that in this sentence, the Sage Mustapha had reference to a 
 patriotic dinner, celebrated last fourth of July, by some gentlemen of Baltimore, 
 when they righteously drank perdition to an unoffending individual, and really 
 thought " they had done the state some service." This amiable custom of "eating 
 and drinking damnation" to others, is not confined to any party: — for a month or 
 two after the fourth of July, the different newspapers file off their columns of 
 patrlotii; tna.sts against each other, and take a pride, in showing how brilliantly 
 their partizans can blackguard public characters in their oups^" they do but jest- 
 poison in jest," as Hamlet says. 
 
220 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 are unworthy of being citizens of this "most enlightened 
 country under the sun:" — rather herd with the murderous 
 savages who prowl the mountains of Tihesti ; who stain their 
 midnight orgies with the blood of the innocent wanderer, and 
 drink their iofernal potations from the skulls of the victims 
 they have massacred. 
 
 And yet, trust me, Asem, this spirit of vindictive cowardice 
 is not owing to any inherent depravity of soul, for, on other 
 occasions, I haVe had ample proof that this nation is mild and 
 merciful, brave and magnanimous ; — neither is it owing to any 
 defect in their political or religious precepts. The principles 
 inculcated by their rulers, on all occasions, breathe a spirit of 
 universal philanthropy ; and as to their religion, much as I am 
 devoted to the Koran of our divine prophet, still I cannot but 
 acknowledge with admiration the mild forbearance, the amia- 
 ble benevolence, the sublime morality bequeathed them by the 
 founder of their faith. — Thou rememberest the doctrines of the 
 mild Nazarine, who preached peace and good-will to aU man- 
 kind; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; who 
 blessed those who cursed him, and prayed for those who de- 
 spitefully used and persecuted him ! What, then, can give rise 
 to this uncharitable, this inhuman custom among the disciples 
 •of a master so gentle and forgiving?— It is that fiend politics, 
 Asem — that baneful fiend, which bewildereth every brain, and 
 poisons every social feeling; which intrudes itself at the fes- 
 tive banquet, and, like the detestable harpy, pollutes the 
 very viands of the table; which contaminates the refreshing 
 draught while it is inhaled; which prompts the cowardly 
 assassin to launch his poisoned arrows from behind the social 
 board ; and which renders the bottle, that boasted promoter of 
 good fellowship and hilarity, an infernal engine, charged with 
 direful combustion. 
 
 Oh, Asem 1 Asem ! how does my heart sicken when I con- 
 template these cowardly barbarities? Let me, therefore, if 
 possible, withdraw my attention from thorn for ever. My 
 feelings have borne me from my subject ; and from the monu- 
 ments of ancient greatness, I have wandered to those of modem 
 degradation. My warmest wishes remain with thee, thou 
 most illustrious of slave-drivers ; mayest thou ever be sensible 
 of the mercies of our great prophet, who, in compassion to 
 human imbecility, has prohibited his disciples from the use of 
 the deluding beverage of the grape;— that enemy to reason- 
 that promoter of defamation — that auxiliary of politics. 
 
 Ever thine, Mustapha. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 221 
 
 NO. XVII.-WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11, 1807. 
 
 AUTUMNAL EEFLECTIONS. 
 
 BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 
 
 When a man is quietly journeying downwards into the val, 
 ley of the shadow of departed youth, and hegins to contem< 
 plate, in a shortened perspective, the end of his pilgrimage, he 
 hecomes more solicitous than ever that the remainder of his 
 wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant ; and the evening of 
 his life, hke the evening of a summer's day, fade away in mild 
 uninterrupted serenity. If haply his heart has escaped unin- 
 jured through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then 
 administer to the purest of his felicities, and its chords vibrate 
 more musically for the trials they have sustained; — ^Uke the 
 viol, which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age. 
 
 To a mind thus temperately harmonized, thus matured and 
 mellowed by a long lapse of years, there is something truly 
 congenial in the quiet enjoyment of our early autunm, amid 
 the tranquiUities of the country. There is a sober and chas- 
 tened air of gayety diffused over the face of nature, peculiarly 
 interesting to an old man ; and when he views the surrounding 
 landscape withering under his eye, it seems as if he and nature 
 were taking a last farewell of each other, and parting with a 
 melancholy smile; like a couple of old friends, who having 
 sported away the spring and summer of Ufe together, part at 
 the approach of winter with a kind of prophetic fear that they 
 are never to meet again. 
 
 It is either my good fortune or mishap to be keenly suscepti- 
 ble to the influence of the atmosphere ; and I can feel in the 
 tnoming, before I open my window, whether the wind is east- 
 erly. It will not, therefore, I presume, be considered an ex- 
 ravagant instance of vain-glory when I assert that there are 
 
222^ SALMA G UNDI. 
 
 few men who can discriminate more accurately in the different 
 varieties of damps, fogs, Scotch-mists, and north-east storms, 
 than myself. To the great discredit of my philosophy I con- 
 fess I seldom fail to anathematize and excommunicate tho 
 weather, when it sports too rudely with ray sensitive system ; 
 hut then I always endeavour to atone therefor, by eulogizing 
 it when deserving of approbation. And as most of my readers 
 — simple folks ! make but one distinction, to-wit, rain and sun- 
 shine;— living in most honest ignorance of the various nice 
 shades wJ^i^h distinguish one fine day from another, I take the 
 trouble, from time to time, of letting them into some of the 
 secrets of nature ; — so will they be the better enabled to enjoy 
 her beauties, with the zest of connoisseurs, and derive at least 
 as much information from my pages, as from the weather- 
 wise bore of the almanac. 
 
 Much of my recreation since I retreated to the Hall, has 
 consisted in making httle excursions through the neighbour- 
 hood; which abounds in the variety of wild, romantic, and 
 luxuriant landscape that generally characterizes the scenery in 
 the vicinity of our rivers. There is not an eminence within a 
 circuit of many miles but commands an extensive range of 
 diversified and enchanting prospect. 
 
 Often have I rambled to the summit of some favourite hUl ; 
 and thence, with feelings sweetly tranquU as the lucid expanse 
 of the heavens that canopied me, have noted the slow and 
 almost imperceptible changes that mark the waning year. 
 There are many features peculiar to our autumn, and which 
 give it an individual character. The "green and yellow mel- 
 ancholy" that first steals over the landscape ;— the mild and 
 steady serenity of the weather, and the transparent purity of 
 the atmosphere, speak, not merely to the senses, but the heart; 
 — it is the season of liberal emotions. To this suceeeds fantas- 
 tic gayety, a motley dress, which the woods assume, where 
 green and yellow, orange, purple, crimson, pnd scarlet, are 
 whimsically blended together. A sickly splendour this!— like 
 the wild and broken-hearted gayety that sometimes precedes 
 dissolution ;— or that childish sportiveness of superannuated 
 age, proceeding, not from a vigorous flow of animal spirits, 
 but from the decay and imbecility of the mind, v/e might, 
 perhaps, be deceived by this gaudy garb of natur-e, were it not 
 for the rustling of the falling leaf, which, breaking on the 
 stillness of the scene, seems to announce, in prophetic wLis- 
 pers, the dreary winter that is approaching. When I have 
 
SALMAGUNDI. „ 223 
 
 sometimes seen a thrifty young oak changing its hue of sturdy 
 vigour for a bright, but transient, glow of red, it has recalled 
 to my mind the treacherous , bloom that once mantled the 
 cheek of a friend who is now no more; and which, while it 
 seemed to promise a long life of jocund spirits, was the sure 
 precursor of premature decay. In a Mttle while and this 
 ostentatious foliage disappears ; the close of autumn leaves buib 
 one wide expanse of dusky brown ; save where some rivulet 
 steals along, bordered with Mttle strips of green grass; — the 
 woodland echoes no more to the carols of the feathered tribes 
 that sported in the leafy covert, and its solitude and silence is 
 uninterrupted, escept by the plaintive whistle of the quail, 
 the barking of the squirrel, or the^still more melancholy win- 
 try wind, which, rushing and swelling through the hollows of 
 the mountains, sighs through the leafless branches of the 
 grove, and seems to mour'n the desolation of the year. 
 
 To one who, like myself, is fond of drawing comparisons 
 between the diflEerent divisions of life, and those of the seasons, 
 there will appear a striking analogy which connects the feel- 
 ings of the aged with the decline of the year. Often as I con- 
 template the mild, uniform, and genial lustre with which the 
 sun cheers and invigorates us in the month of October, and 
 the almost imperceptible haze which, without obscuring, tem- 
 pers all the asperities of the landscape, and gives to every 
 object a character of stillness and repose, I cannot help com- 
 paring it with that portion of existence, when the spring of 
 youthful hope, and the simimer of the passions having gone 
 by, reason assumes an undisputed swny, and lights us on with 
 bright but undazzling lustre adown the hill of life. There is a 
 full and mature luxuriance in the fields that fills the bosom 
 with generous and disinterested content. It is not the thought- 
 less extravagance of spring, prodigal only in blossoms, nor the 
 languid voluptuousness of summer, feverish in its enjoyments, 
 and teeming only with immature abundance;— it is that cer- 
 tain fruition of the labours of the past— that prospect of com- 
 fortable reahties, which those will be sure to enjoy who have 
 improved the bounteous smiles of heaven, nor wasted away 
 their spring and summer in empty trifling or criminal indul- 
 gence. 
 
 Cousin Pindar, who is my constant companion in these ex- 
 peditions, and who still possesses much of the fire and energy ot 
 youthful sentiment, and a buxom hilarity of the spirits, often, 
 indeed, draws me from these half-melancholy reveries, and 
 
224 SALMAGUNDI. ' 
 
 makes me feel young again by the enthusiasm with which he 
 contemplates, and the animation with which he eulogizes the 
 beauties of nature displayed before him. His enthusiastic dis- 
 position never allows him to enjoy things by halves, and his 
 feelings are continually breaking out in notes of admiration 
 and ejaculations that sober reason might perhaps deem ex- 
 travagant : — But for my part, when I see a hale, hearty old 
 man, who has jostled through the rough path of the world, 
 without having worn away the fine edge of his feelings, or 
 blunted his sensibiHty to natural and moral beauty, I compare 
 hitn to the ever-green of the forest, whose colours, instead of 
 fading at the approach of winter, seem to assume additional 
 lustre when contrasted witB the surrounding desolation ; — such 
 a man is my friend Piadar; — yet sometimes, and particularly at 
 the approach of evening, even he will fall ia with my humour ; 
 but he soon recovers his natural tone of spirits : and, mount- 
 ing on the elasticity of his mind, Uke Ganymede on the eagle's 
 wing, he soars to the ethereal regions of sunshine and fancy. 
 
 One afternoon we had strolled to the top of a high hiU in the 
 neighbourhood of the HaU, which commands an almost bound- 
 less prospect ; and as the shadows began to lengthen around us, 
 and the distant mountains to fade into mists, my cousin was 
 seized with a moralizing fit. " It seems to me," said he, laying 
 his hand lightly on my shoulder, "that there is just at this 
 season, and this hour, a sympathy between us and the world 
 we are now contemplating. The evening is stealing upon 
 nature as well as upon us; — the shadows of the opening day 
 have given place to those of its close ; and the only difference 
 is, that in the morning they were before us, now they are be- 
 hind; and that the first vanished in the splendours of noon- 
 day, the latter will be lost in the oblivion of night;— our ' May 
 of life,' my dear Launce, has for ever fled; and our summer is 
 
 over and gone: but," continued he, suddenly recovering 
 
 himself and slapping me gaUy on the shoulder, — "but why 
 should we repine?— what? though the capricioiis zephyrs of 
 spring, the heats and hurricanes of simimer, have given place 
 to the sober sunshine of autumn ! — and though the woods begin 
 to assume the dappled livery of decay! — yet the prevailing 
 colour is still green:- gay, sprightly green. 
 
 "Let us, then, comfort cm-selves with this reflection; that 
 though the shades of the morning have given place to thfise of 
 the evening,— though the spring is past, the summer over, and 
 the autumn come, — stiU you and I go on our way rejoicing;-^ 
 
8/itMAGUNDl. 225 
 
 and while, like the lofty mountains of our southern America, 
 our heads are covered with snow, still, like them, we feel 
 the genial warmth of spring and summer playing upon our 
 bosoms." 
 
 BY LAXJNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 
 
 In the description which I gave, some time since, of Cockloft- 
 hall, I totally forgot to make honourable mention of the library ; 
 which I confess was a most inexcusable oversight ; for in truth 
 it would bear a comparison, in point of usefulness and eccen- 
 tricity, with the motley collection of the renowned hero of La 
 Mancha. 
 
 It was chiefly gathered together hy my grandfather; who 
 spared neither pains nor expense to procure specimens of the 
 oldest, most quaint, and insufferable books in the whole 
 compass of English, Scotch, and Irish literature. There is a 
 tradition in the family that the old gentleman once gaye a 
 grand entertainment in consequence of having got possession 
 of a copy of a philippic, by Archbishop Anselm, against the 
 unseemly luxury of long toed shoes, as worn by the courtiers 
 in the time of WilUam Eufus, which he piirchased of an honest 
 brickmaker in the neighborhood, for a little less than forty 
 times its value. He had undoubtedly a singular reverence for 
 old authors, and his highest eulogium on his library was, that 
 it consisted of books not to beniet with in any other collection ; 
 and, as the phrase is, entirely out of print. The reason of 
 which was, I suppose, that they were not worthy of being re- 
 printed. 
 
 Cousin Christopher preserves these relics with great care, 
 and has added considerably to the collection ; for with the hall 
 he has inherited almost aU the whim-whams of its former pos- 
 sessor. He cherishes a reverential regai'd for ponderous tomes 
 of Greek and Latin; though he knows about as much of these 
 languages as a young bachelor of arts does a year or two after 
 leaving college. A worm-eaten work in eight or ten volumes 
 he compares to an old family, more respectable for its antiquity 
 than its splendour ;— a lumbering folio he considers as a duke ; — 
 a sturdy quarto, as an earl ; and a row of gilded duodecimos, as 
 so many gallant knights of the garter. But as to modern 
 works of literature, they are thrust into trunks and drawers, 
 
226 SALMA G UNDI. 
 
 as intruding upstarts, and regarded with as much contempt as 
 mushroom nobUity in England ; who, having risen to grandeur, 
 merely by their talents and services, are regarded as utterly 
 unworthy to mingle their blood with those noble currents that 
 can be traced without a single contamination through a long 
 line of, perhaps, useless and profligate ancestors, up to William 
 the bastard's cook, or butler, or groom, or some one o£ Rollo's 
 freebooters. 
 
 Win Wizard, whose studies are of a most uncommon com- 
 plexion, takes great dehght in ransacking the hbrary ; and has 
 been, during his late sojournings at the hall, very constant and 
 devout in his visits to this receptacle of obsolete learning. He 
 seemed particularly tickled with the contents of the great 
 mahogany chest of drawers mentioned in the beginning of this 
 work. This venerable piece of architecture has frowned, in 
 sullen majesty, from a corner of the library, time out of mind ; 
 and is filled with musty manuscripts, some in my grandfather's 
 handwriting, and others evidently written long before his day. 
 
 It was a sight, worthy of a man's seeing, to behold Will with 
 his outlandish phiz poring over old scrawls that would puzzle 
 a whole society of antiquarians to expound, and diving into 
 receptacles of trumpery, which, for a century past, had been 
 undisturbed by mortal hand. He would sit for whole hours, 
 with a phlegmatic patience unknown in these degenerate days, 
 except, peradventure, among the High Dutch commentators, 
 prying into the quaint obscurity of musty parchments, until 
 his whole face seemed to be converted into a folio leaf of black- 
 letter; and occasionally, when the whimsical meaning of an 
 obscure passage flashed on his mind, his countenance would 
 curl up into an expression of gothic risibility, not unUke the 
 physiognomy of a cabbage leaf wilting before a hot fire. 
 
 At such times there was no getting Will to join in our walks ; 
 or take any part in our usual recreations : he hardly gave us 
 an oriental tale in a week, and would smoke so inveterately 
 that no one else dared enter the library under pain of suffoca- 
 tion; This was more especially the case when he encountered 
 any knotty piece of writing ; and he honestly confessed to me 
 that one worm-eaten manuscript, written in a pestilent crabbed 
 hand, had cost him a box of the best Spanish segars before he 
 could make it out ; and after all, it was not worth a tobacco- 
 stalk. Such is the turn of my knowing associate;— only let 
 him get fairly in the track of any odd out-of-ths-way whim- 
 wham., and away he goes, whip and cut, until he either runs 
 
SALMAGVm)!. 227 
 
 down his game, or runs himself out of breath ;— I never in my 
 life met with a man who rode his hobby-horse more iatolerably 
 hard than Wizard. 
 
 One of his favourite occupations for some time past, has 
 been the hunting of black-letter, which he holds in high re- 
 gard; and he often hints, that learning has been on the de- 
 cline ever since the introduction of the Eoman alphabet. An 
 old book printed three hundred years ago, is a treasure ; and 
 a ragged scroll, about one-half unintelKgible, fills him with 
 rapture. Oh ! with what enthusiasm wUl he dwell on the dis- 
 covery of the Pandects of Justinian, and Livy's history : and 
 when he relates the pious exertions of the Medici, in recover- 
 ing the lost treasures of Greek and Eoman literature, his eye 
 brightens, and his face assumes aU the splendour of an illumi- 
 nated manuscript. 
 
 Will had vegetated for a considerable time in perfect tran- 
 quillity among dust and cobwebs, when one morning as we 
 were gathered on the piazza, listening with exemplary patience 
 to one of cousin Christopher's long stories about the revolu- 
 tionary war, we were suddenly electrified by an explosion of 
 laughter from the library. —My readers, unless peradventure 
 they have heard honest WiU laugh, can form no idea of the 
 prodigious uproar he makes. To hear him in a forest, you 
 would imagine — that is to say, if you were classical enough — 
 that the satyrs and' the dryads had just discovered a pair of 
 rural lovers in the shade, and were deriding, with bursts of 
 obstreperous laughter, the blushes of the nymph and the in- 
 dignation of the swain ;— '■or if it were suddenly, as in the pres- 
 ent instance, to break upon the serene and pensive silence of 
 an autumnal morning, it would cause a sensation something 
 like that which arises from hearing a sudden clap of thunder 
 in a summer's day, when not a cloud is to be seen above the 
 horizon. In short, I recommend Will's laugh as a sovereign 
 remedy for the spleen: and if any of our readers are troubled 
 with that villainous complaint, — which can hardly be, if they 
 make good use of our works, — I advise them earnestly to get 
 introduced to him forthwith. 
 
 This outrageous merriment of Will's, as may be easily sup- 
 posed, threw the whole family into a violent fit of wondering; 
 we aU, with the exception of Christopher, who took the inter- 
 ruption in high dudgeon, silently stole up to the library; and 
 bolting in upon him, were fain at the first glance to join in his 
 aspiring roar. His face, — ^but I despair to give an idea of his 
 
228 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 appearance ! — and until his portrait, which is now in the hands 
 of an eminent artigt, is engraved, my readers must be content: 
 — I promise them they shall one day or other have a striking 
 likeness of Will's indescribable phiz, in all its native come- 
 liness. 
 
 Upon my inquiring the occasion of his mirth, he thrust an 
 old, rusty, musty, and dusty manuscript into my hand, of 
 which I could not decypher one word out of ten, without more 
 trouble than it was worth. This task, however, he kindly took 
 off my hands ; and, in a little more than eight and forty hours, 
 produced a translation into fair Roman letters ; though he as- 
 sured me it had lost a vast deal of its hmnour by being mod- 
 ernized and degraded into plain English. In return for the 
 great pains he had taken, I could not do less than insert it in 
 our work. Will informs me that it is but one sheet of a stu- 
 pendous bundle which still remains uninvestigated — who was 
 the author we have not yet discovered, but a note on the back, 
 in my grandfather's handwriting, informs us that it was pre- 
 sented to him as a literary curiosity by his particular friend, 
 the illustrious Rip Van Dam, formerly lieutenant-governor of 
 the colony of New Amsterdam; and whose fame, if it has 
 never reached these latter days, it is only because he was too 
 modest a man ever to do any thing worthy of being particu- 
 larly recorded. 
 
 CHAP. CIX. OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE RENOWNED 
 AND ANTIENT CITY OF GOTHAM. 
 
 How Gotham city conquered was, 
 
 And how the folk turn'd apes— because.— Linfc. Fid. 
 
 Albeit, much about this time it did fall out that the thrice 
 renowned and delectable city of Gotham did suffer great dis- 
 comfiture, and was reduced to perilous extremity, by the in- 
 vasion and assaults of the Hoppingtots. These are a people in- 
 habiting a far distant country, exceedingly pleasaunte and fer- 
 tile ; but they being withal egregiously addicted to migrations, 
 do thence issue forth in mighty swarms, hke the Scythians of 
 old, overrunning divers countries, and commonwealths, and 
 committing great devastations wheresoever they do go, by 
 their horrible and dreadful feats and prowesses. They are 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 229 
 
 specially noted for being right valorous in all exercises of the 
 leg; and of them it hath been rightly aflarmed that no nation 
 in all Christendom or elsewhere, can cope with them in the 
 adroit, dexterous, and jocund shaking of the heel. 
 
 This engaging excellence doth stand unto them a sovereign 
 recommendation, by the which they do insinuate themselves 
 into imiversal favour and good countenance ; and it is a nota- 
 ble fact, that, let a Hoppingtot but once introduce a foot into 
 company, and it goeth hardly if he doth not contrive to flour- 
 ish his whole body in thereafter. The learned Linkum Fide- 
 lius, in his famous and unheard-of treatise on man, whom he 
 defineth, with exceeding sagacity, to be a corn-cutting, tooth- 
 drawing animal,, is particularly minute and elaborate in treat- 
 ing of the nation of the Hoppingtots, and betrays a little of the 
 Pythagorean in his theory, inasmuch as he accounteth for 
 their being so wonderouslv adroit in pedestrian exercises, by 
 supposing that they did originally acquire this unaccountable 
 and unparalleled aptitude lor Huge and unmatchable feats of 
 the leg, by having heretofore been condemned for their nume- 
 rous offences against that harmless race of bipeds —or quadru- 
 peds,— for herein the sage Linkum FideUus appeareth to doubt 
 and waver exceedingly — the frogs, to animate their bodies for 
 the space of one or two generations. 
 
 He also giveth it as his opinion, that the name of Hopping- 
 tots is manifestly derivative from this transmigration. Be 
 this, however, as it may, the matter, albeit it hath been the 
 subject of controversy among the learned, is but little perti- 
 nent to the subject of this history ; wherefore shall we treat 
 and consider it as naughte. 
 
 Now these people being thereto impelled by a superfluity of 
 appetite, and a plentiful deficiency of the wherewithal to sat- 
 isfy the same, did take thought that the antient and venerable 
 city of Gotham, was, peradventure, possessed of mighty treas- 
 ures, and did, moreover, aboimd with all manner of fish and 
 flesh, and eatables and drinkables, and such like delightsome 
 and wholesome excellencies withal. Whereupon calling a 
 council of the most active heeled warriors, they did resolve 
 forthwith to put forth a mighty array, make themselves mas- 
 ters of the same, and revel in the good things of the land. To 
 th^= wore they hotly stirred up, and wickedly incited, by two 
 redoubtable and renowned warriors, hight pirotjet and riga- 
 DOON; ycleped in such sort, by reason that they were two 
 mighty, valiant, and invincible little men ; utterly famous for 
 
230 SALMA G UNDT. 
 
 the victories of the leg which they had, on divers illustrious 
 occasions, right gallantly achieved. 
 
 These doughty champions did ambitiously and wickedly in- 
 flame the minds of their countrymen, with gorgeous descrip- 
 tions, in the which they did cunninglie set forth the marvel- 
 lous riches and luxuries of Gotham; where Hoppingtots might 
 have garments for their bodies, shirts to their ruffles, and 
 might riot most merrily every day in the week on beef, pud- 
 ding, and such like lusty dainties. — They, Pirouet and Riga- 
 doon, did Hkewise hold out hopes of an easy conquest ; foras- 
 much as the Gothamites were as yet but little versed in the 
 mystery and science of handling the legs ; and being, moreover, 
 like unto that notable buUy of antiquity, Achilles, most vul- 
 nerable to all attacks on the heel, would doubtless surrender at 
 the very first assault. —Whereupon, on the hearing of this in- 
 spiriting counsel, the Hoppingtots did set up a prodigious great 
 cry of joy, shook their heels in triumph, and wore aU impa- 
 tience to dance on to Gotham and take it by storm. 
 
 The cunning Pirouet and the arch caitiff Rigadoon, knew full 
 well how to profit of this enthusiasm. They forthwith did 
 order every man to arm himself with a certsiin pestilent little 
 weapon, called a fiddle;— to pack up in his knapsack a pair of 
 silk breeches, the hke of ruffles, a cocked hat of the form of a 
 half-moon, a bundle of catgut— and inasmuch as in marching 
 to Gotham, the army might, peradventure, be smitten with 
 scarcity of provisions, they did account it proper that each man 
 should take especial care to carry with him a bunch of right 
 merchantable onions. Having proclaimed these orders by 
 sound of fiddle, they, Pirouet and Rigadoon, did accordingly 
 put their army behind them, and striking up the right joUy 
 and sprightful tune of Ca Ira, away they aU capered towards 
 the devoted «ity of Gotham, with a most horrible and apptdling 
 chattering of voices. 
 
 Of their first appearance before the beleaguered town, and of 
 the various difficulties which did encounter them in their 
 march, this history saith not ; being that other matters of more 
 weighty import require to be written. When that the army of 
 the Hoppingtots did peregrinate within sight of Gotham, and 
 the people of the city did behold the villainous and hitherto 
 vmseen capers, and grimaces, which they did make, a most 
 horrific panic was stirred up among the citizens ; and the sagea 
 of the town fell into great despondency and tribulation, as 
 supposing that these invaderswere of the race of the Jig-hees, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 231 
 
 who did make men into baboons when they achieved a con- 
 quest over them. The sages, therefore, called upon all the 
 dancing men, and dancing women, and exhorted them, with 
 great vehemency of speech, to make heel against the invaders, 
 and to put themselves upon such gallant defence, such glorious 
 array, and such sturdy evolution, elevation, and transposition 
 of the foot as might incontinently impester the legs of the Hop- 
 pingtots, and produce their complete discomfiture. But so it 
 did happen, by great mischance, that divers light-heeled youth 
 of Gotham, more especially those who are descended from, 
 three wise men, so renowned of yore for having most venture- 
 somely voyaged over sea in a bowl, were, from time to time, 
 captured and inveigled into the camp of the enemy ; where, 
 being foolishly cajoled and treated for a season with outlandish 
 disports and pleasantries, they were sent back to their friends, 
 entirely changed, degenerated, and turned topsy-turvy; inso- 
 much that they thought thenceforth of nothing but their heels, 
 always essaying to thrust them into the most manifest point of 
 view ; — and, in a word, as might truly be afiEirmed, did for ever 
 after walk upon their heads outright. 
 
 And the Hoppingtots did day by day, and at late hours of 
 the night, wax more and more urgent in this their investment 
 of the city. At one time they would, in goodly procession, 
 make an open assault by sound of fiddle in a tremendous con- 
 tra dance ; — and anon they would advance by little detachments 
 and manoeuvres to take the town by figuring in cotilhons. 
 But truly their most cunning and devilish craft, and subtilty, 
 was made manifest in their strenuous endeavours to corrupt 
 the gari-ison, by a most insidious and pestilent dance called the 
 Waltz. This, in good truth, was a potent auxQiary ; for, by it, 
 were the heads of the simple Gothamites most villainously 
 turned, their wits sent a wool-gathering, and themselves on 
 the point of surrendering at discretion even unto the very arms 
 of their invading foemen. 
 
 At length the fortifications of the town began to give mani- 
 fest symptoms of decay ; inasmuch as the breastwork of de- 
 cency was considerably broken down, and the curtain works 
 of propriety blown up. When that the cunning caitiff Pirouet 
 beheld the ticklish and jeopardized state of the city—" Now, 
 by my leg," quoth he,— he alwaya swore by his leg, being that 
 it was an exceeding goodhe leg; — " Now, by my leg," quoth he, 
 " but this is no great matter of recreation; — I will show these 
 people a pretty, strange, and new way forsooth, presentlie, 
 
232 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 and will shake the dust off my pumps upon this most obstinate 
 and unci'vUized town." Whereupon he ordered, and did com- 
 mand his warriors, one and all, that they should put themselves 
 in readiness, and prepare to carry the town by a geand ball. 
 They, in no wise to be daunted, do forthwith, at the word, 
 equip themselves for the assaiilt ; and in good faith, truly, it 
 was a gracious and glorious sight, a most triumphant and in- 
 comparable spectacle, to behold them gallantly arrayed in 
 glossy and shining sUk breeches tied with abundance of riband ; 
 with silken hose of the gorgeous colour of the salmon; — right 
 goodhe morocco pumps decorated with clasps or buckles of a 
 most cunninge and secret contrivance, inasmuch as they did of 
 themselves grapple to the shoe without any aid of fluke or 
 tongue, marvellously ensembhng witchcraft and necromancy. 
 They had, withal, exuberant chitterhngs ; which puffed out at 
 the neck and bosom, after a most jolly fashion, hke unto the 
 beard of an antient he-turkey ;— and cocked hats, the which 
 they did carry not on their heads, after the fashion of the 
 Gothamites, but under their arms, as a roasted fowl his gizzard. 
 Thus being equipped, and marshalled, they do attack, assault, 
 batter and belabour the town with might and main; — most gal- 
 lantly displaying the vigour of their legs, and shaking their 
 heels at it most emphatically. And the manner of their attack 
 was in this sort ; — first, they did thunder and gallop forward 
 in a contre-temps; — and anon, displayed column in a Cossack 
 dance, a fandango, or a gavot. Whereat the Gothamites, in 
 no wise understanding this unknown system of warfare, mar- 
 velled exceedinglie, and did open their mouths incontinently, 
 the full distance of a bow-shot, meaning a cross-bow, in sore 
 dismay and apprehension. Whereupon, saith Eigadoon, flour- 
 ishing his left leg with great expression of valour, and most 
 magnific carriage — " my copesmates, for what wait we here; 
 are not the townsmen already won tp our favour?— do not their 
 women and yoimg damsels wave to us from the walls in such 
 sort that, albeit there is some show of defence, yet is it mani- 
 festly converted into our interests?" so saying, he made no 
 more ado, but leaping into the air about a flight-shot, and 
 crossing his feet six times, after the manner of the Hoppingtots, 
 he gave a short partridge-run, and with mighty vigour and 
 swiftness did bolt outright over the walls with a somerset. 
 The whole army of Hoppingtots danced in after their valiant 
 chieftain, with an enormous squeaking of fiddles, and a horrific 
 blasting and brattling of horns ; insomuch that the dogs did 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 233 
 
 howl in the streets, so hideously were their ears assailed. The 
 Gothamites made some semblance of defence, but their women 
 having been all won over into the interest of the enemy, they 
 were shortly reduced to make most abject submission; and de- 
 livered over to the coercion of certain professors of the Hop- 
 pingtots, who did put them under most ignominious durance, 
 for the space of a long time, until they had learned to turn out 
 their toes, and flourish their legs after the true manner of 
 their conquerors. And thus, after the manner I have related, 
 was the mighty and puissant city of Gotham circiunvented, 
 and taken by a coup de pied : or as it might by rendered, by 
 force of legs. 
 
 The conqiierors showed no mercy, but did put aU ages, sexes, 
 and conditions to the fiddle and the dance ; and, in a word, 
 compelled and enforced them to become absolute Hoppingtots. 
 "Habit," as the ingenious Linkum Fidelius profoundly afflrm- 
 eth, "is second nature." And this original and invaluable ob- 
 servation hath been most aply proved, and illustrated, by the 
 example of the Gothamites, ever since this disastrous and un- 
 lucky mischance. In process of time, they have waxed to be 
 most flagrant, outrageous, and abandoned dancers; they do 
 ponder on noughte but how to gallantize it at balls, routs, and 
 fandangoes; insomuch that the Mke was in no time or place 
 ever observed before. They do, moreover, pitifuUy devote 
 their nights to the jollification of the legs, and their days for- 
 sooth to the instruction and edification of the heel. And to 
 conclude ; their young folk, who whilome did bestow a modi- 
 cum of leisure upon the improvement of the head, have of late 
 utterly abandoned this hopeless task ; and have qidetly, as it 
 were, settled themselves down into mere machines, wound up 
 by a tune, and set in motion by a fiddle-stick I 
 
234 SALMA6 UNDI. 
 
 NO. XVIII. -TUESDAY, NOV. 24, 1807. 
 
 THE LITTLE MAN IN BLACK. 
 
 BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 
 
 The following story has been handed down by family tradi- 
 tion for more than a century. It is one on wMch my cousin 
 Christopher dwells with more than usual prolixity ; and, being 
 in some measure connected with a personage often quoted in 
 our work, I have thought it worthy of being laid before my 
 readers. 
 
 Soon after my grandfather, Mr. Lemuel Cockloft, had quietly 
 settled himself at the hall, and just about the time that the 
 gossips of the neighbourhood, tired of prying into his affairs, 
 were anxious for some new tea-table topic, the busy communi- 
 ty of oiu-- little village was thrown into a grand turmoil of 
 curiosity and conjecture— a situation very common to little 
 gossiping villages— by the sudden and imaccountable appear- 
 ance of a mysterious individual. 
 
 The object of this solicitude was a little black-looking man, 
 of a foreign aspect, who took possession of an old building, 
 which having long had the reputation of being haimted, was in 
 a state of ruinous desolation, and an object of fear to aU true 
 believers iu ghosts. He usually wore a high sugarloaf hat with 
 a narrow brim; and a little black cloak, which, short as he 
 was, scarcely reached below his knees. He sought no intimacy 
 or acquaintance with any one ; appeared to take no interest in 
 the pleasures or the little broils of the village; nor ever talked- 
 except sometimes to himself in an outlandish tongue. He 
 commonly carried a large book, covered with sheepskin, imder 
 his arm ; appeared always to be lost in meditation ; and was 
 often met by the peasantry, sometimes watching the dawning 
 of day, sometimes at noon seated under a tree poring over his 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 235 
 
 volume; and sometimes at evening gazing with a look of sober 
 tranquillity at the sun as it gradually sunk below the horizon. 
 
 The good people of the vicinity beheld something prodig- 
 iously singular in all this;— a profound mystery seemed to 
 hang about the stranger, which, with all their sagacity, they 
 could not penetrate ; and in the excess of worldly charity they 
 pronounced it a sure sign "that he was no better than he 
 should be ;" — a phrase innocent enough in itself : but which, as 
 applied in common, signifies nearly every thing that is bad. 
 The young people thought him a gloomy misanthrope, because 
 he never joined in their sports ;— the old men thought stiU more 
 hardly of him because he followed no trade, nor ever seemed 
 ambitious of earning a farthing ;— and as to the old gossips, 
 baffled by the inflexible taciturnity of the stranger, they unani- 
 mously agreed that a man who could not or would not talk 
 was no better than a dumb beast. The little man in black, 
 careless of their opinions, seemed resolved to maintain the lib- 
 erty of keeping his own secret ; and the consequence was, that, 
 in a little while, the whole village was in an uproar ; — for in 
 little communities of this description, the members have al- 
 ways the privilege of being thoroughly versed, and even of 
 meddling in all the affairs of each other. 
 
 A confidential conference was held one Sunday morning 
 after sermon, at the door of the village church, and the char- 
 acter of the unknown fully investigated. The schoolmaster 
 gave as his opinion, that he was the wandering Jew ;^ — the sex- 
 ton was jcertain that he must be a free-mason from his silence ; 
 — a third maintained, with great obstinacy, that he was a 
 high German doctor; and that the book which he carried about 
 with him, contained the secrets of the black art ; but the most 
 prevailing opinion seemed to be that he was a witch; — a race 
 of beings at that time abounding in those parts ; and a saga- 
 cious old matron, from Connecticut, proposed to ascertain the 
 fact by sousing him into a kettle of hot water. 
 
 Suspicion, when once afloat, goes with wind and tide, and 
 soon becomes certainty. Many a stormy night was the little 
 man in black, seen by the flashes of lightning, frisking and 
 curveting in the air upon a broomstick ; and it was always ob- 
 served, that at those times the storm did more mischief than 
 at any other. The old lady in particular, who suggested the 
 humane ordeal of the boilin.f? kettle, lost on one of these occa- 
 sions a fine brindle cow ; which accident was entirely ascribed 
 to the vengeance of the little man in black. If ever a mis- 
 
236 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 chievous hireling rode his master's favourite horse to a distant 
 froUc, and the animal was observed to be lame and jaded in 
 the morning, — the uttle man in black was sure to be at the 
 bottom of the afiEair ; nor could a high wind howl through the 
 vOlage at night but the old women shrugged up their shoul- 
 ders, and observed, ' ' the little man in black was in his tan- 
 trums." In short, he became the bugbear of every house; and 
 was as effectual in frightening httle children into obedience 
 and hysterics, as the redoubtable Eaw-head-and-bloody-bones 
 himself : nor could a housewife of the village sleep in peace, 
 except under the guardianship of a horse-shoe nailed to the 
 door. 
 
 The object of these direful suspicions remained for some time 
 totally ignorant of the wonderful quandary he had occasioned ; 
 but he was soon doomed to feel its effects. An individual who 
 is once so unfortunate as to incur the odium of a village, is in 
 a great measure outlawed and proscribed ; and becomes a mark 
 for injury and insult ; particiilarly if he has not the power or 
 the disposition to recriminate. The little venomous passions, 
 which in the great world are dissipated and weakened by 
 being widely diffused, act in the narrow limits of a country 
 town with collected vigour, and become rancorous in propor- 
 tion as they are confined in their sphere of action. The Uttle 
 man in black experienced the truth of this ; every mischievous 
 urchin returning from school, had full liberty to break his win- 
 dows ; and this was considered as a most daring exploit ; for 
 in such awe did they stand of him, that the most adventurous 
 school boy was never seen to approach his threshold, and at 
 night would prefer going round by the cross-roads, where a 
 traveller had been murdered by the Indians, rather than pass 
 by the door of his forlorn habitation. 
 
 The only living creature that seemed to have any care or 
 affection for this deserted being was an old turnspit,— the 
 companion of his lonely mansion and his solitary wanderings; 
 —the sharer of his scanty meals, and, sorry am I to say it, the 
 sharer of his persecutions. The turnspit, like his master, was 
 peaceable and inoffensive ; never known to bark at a horse, to 
 growl at a traveller, or to quarrel with the dogs of the neigh- 
 bourhood. He followed close at his master's heels when he 
 went out, and when he returned stretched himself in the sun- 
 beams at the door; demeaning himself in all thinps like a civil 
 and well-disposed turnspit. But notwithstanding his exemplary 
 deportment, he fell likewise under the iU report of the village ; 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 237 
 
 as being the familiar of the Httle man in black, and the evil 
 spirit that presided at his incantations. The old hovel was 
 considered as the scene of their unhallowed rites, and its harm- 
 less tenants regarded with a detestation which their iaoffen- 
 sive conduct never merited. — Though pelted and jeered at by 
 the brats of the village, and frequently abused by their 
 parents, the little man in black never turned to rebuke them; 
 and his faithful dog, when wantonly assaulted, looked up 
 wistfully in his master's face, and there learned a lesson of 
 patience and forbearance. 
 
 The movements of this inscrutable being had long been the 
 subject of speculation at Cockloft-hall, for its inmates were fuU 
 as much given to wondering as their descendants. The pa- 
 tience with which he bore his persecutions particularly sur- 
 prised them ; for patience is a virtue but Uttle known in the 
 Cockloft f amUy. My grandmother, who it appears was rather 
 superstitious, saw in this humility nothing but the gloomy sul- 
 lenness of a wizard, who restrained himself for the present, in 
 hopes of midnight vengeance ;— the parson of the village, who 
 was a man of some reading, pronounced it the stubborn insen- 
 sibUity of a stoic philosopher;— my grandfather, who, worthy 
 sotd, seldom wandered abroad in search of conclusions, took a 
 data from his own excellent heart, and regarded it as the hum- 
 ble forgiveness of a Christian. But however different were 
 their opinions as to the character of the stranger, they agreed 
 in one particular, namely, in never intruding upon his soli- 
 tude ; and my grandmother, who was at that time nursing my 
 toother, never left the room without wisely putting the large 
 family Bible in the cradle; a sure talisman, in her opinion, 
 against witchcraft and necromancy. 
 
 One stormy winter night, when a bleak north-east wind 
 moaned about the cottages, and howled around the village 
 steeple, my grandfather was returning from club, preceded by 
 a servant with a lantern. Just as he arrived opposite the des- 
 olate abode of the little man in black, he was arrested by the 
 piteous howling of a dog, which, heard in the pauses of the 
 storm, was exquisitely mournf-ul; and he fancied now and 
 then, that he caught the low and broken groans of some one in 
 distress. — He stopped for some minutes, hesitating between the 
 benevolence of his heart and a sensation of genuine deUcacy, 
 Which, in spite of his eccentricity, he fully possessed, — and 
 which forbade him to pry into the concerns of his neighbours. 
 Perhaps, too, this hesitation might have been strengthened by 
 
238 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 a little taint of superstition ; for surely, if the unknown tad 
 been addicted to witclicraft, this was a most propitious night 
 for his vagaries. At length the old gentleman's philanthropy 
 predominatea ; he approached the hovel, and pushing open the 
 door, — for poverty has no occasion for locks and keys,— be- 
 held, by the light of the lantern, a scene that smote his gen' 
 erous heart to the core. 
 
 On a miserable bed, with pallid and emaciated visage, and 
 hollow eyes; — in a room destitute of every convenience; — 
 without lire to warm, or friend to console him, lay tliis help- 
 less mortal, who had been so long the terror and wonder of the 
 village. His dog was crouching on the scanty coverlet, and 
 shivering with cold. My grandfather stepped softly and hesi- 
 tatingly to the bed-side, and accosted the forlorn sufferer in his 
 usual accents of kindness. The little man in black seemed re- 
 called by the tones of compassion from the lethargy into which 
 he had fallen; for, though his heart was almost frozen, there 
 was yet one chord that answered to the call of the good old 
 man who bent over him ; the tones of sympathy, so novel to 
 his ear, called back. his wandering senses, and acted like a res- 
 torative to his sohtary feelings. 
 
 He raised his eyes, but they were vacant and haggard ;— he 
 put forth his hand, but it was cold ; he essayed to speak, but 
 the sound died away in his throat ; — he pointed to his mouth 
 with an expression of dreadful meaning, and, sad to relate! 
 my grandfather understood that the harmless stranger, de- 
 serted by society, was perishing with hunger ! — with the quick 
 impulse of humanity he despatched the servant to the hall for 
 refreshment. A little warm nourishment renovated him for a 
 short time, but not long : — ^it was evident his pilgrimage was 
 drawing to a close, and he was about entering that peaceful 
 asylum where " the wicked cease from troubliag." 
 
 His tale of misery was short, and quickly told : infirmities 
 had stolen upon him, heightened by the rigours of the season : 
 he had taken to his bed without strength to rise and ask for 
 assistance ;— " and if I had," said he in' a tone of bitter despon- 
 dency, "to whom should I have applied? I have no friend 
 that I know of in the world ! — the villagers avoid me a,s some- 
 thing loathsome and dangerous; and hero, in the midst of 
 Christians, should I have perished, without a fellow-being to 
 soothe the last moments of existence, and close my dying eyes, 
 had not the bowlings of my faithful dog excited your atten 
 tion." 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 239 
 
 He seemed deeply sensible of the kindness of my grand- 
 father ; and at one time as he looked up into his old benefac- 
 tor's face, a solitary tear was observed to steal adown the 
 parched f uitows of his cheek — poor outcast ! — it was the last 
 tear he shed — but I warrant it was not the first by millions 1 
 my grandfather watched by him aU night. Towards morning 
 he gradually declined ; and as the rising sun gleamed through 
 the window, he begged to be raised in his bed that he might 
 look at it for the last time. He contemplated it for a moment 
 with a kind of religious enthusiasm, and his Hps moved as if 
 engaged in prayer. The strange conjectures concerning him 
 rushed on my grandfather's mind :" he is an idolater !" thought 
 he, "and is worshipping the sun 1"— He listened a moment and 
 blushed at his own uncharitable suspicion; he was only en- 
 gaged in the pious devotions of a Christian. His simple orison 
 being finished, the little man in black withdrew his eyes from 
 the east, and taking my grandfather's hand in one of his, and 
 making a motion with the other towards the sun; — "I love to 
 contemplate it," said he, "'tis an emblem of the universal 
 benevolence of a true Christian ; — and it is the most glorious 
 work of him who is philanthropy itself!" My grandfather 
 blushed still deeper at his ungenerous surmises ; he had pitied 
 the stranger at first, but now he revered him :— he turned once 
 more to regard him, but his countenance had undergone a 
 change ;— the holy enthusiasm that bad lighted up each fea- 
 ture, had given place to an expression of mysterious import;— 
 a gleam of grandeur seemed to steal across his Gothic visage, 
 and he appeared fuU of some mighty secret which he hesitated 
 to impart. He raised the tattered nightcap that had sunk al- 
 most over his eyes, and waving his withered hand with a slow 
 and feeble expression of dignity,— "In me," said he, with la- 
 conic solemnity, — "in me you behold the last descendant of 
 the renowned Linkum Fidelius!" My grandfather gazed at 
 him with reverence; for though he had never heard of the 
 illustrious personage, thus pompously announced, jet there 
 was a certain black-letter dignity in the name that peculiarly 
 struck his fancy and commanded his respect. 
 
 "Tou have been kind to me," continued the little man in 
 black, after a momentary pause, "and richly will I requite 
 your kindness by making you heir to my treasures ! In yon- 
 der large deal box are the volumes ci my illustrious ancestor, 
 of which I alone am the fortunate possessor. Inherit them— 
 ponder over them, and be wise I" He grew faint with the ex- 
 
240 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 ertion he had made, and sunk back almost breathless on his 
 pillow. His hand, which, inspired with the importance of his 
 subject, he had raised to my grandfather's arm, slipped from 
 its hold and fell over the side of the bed, and his faithful dog 
 licked it ; as if anxious to soothe the last moments of his mas' 
 t6r, and testify his gratitude to the hand that had so often 
 cherished him. The untaught caresses of the faithful animal 
 were not lost upon his dying master ; — he raised his languid 
 eyes, — turned them on the dog, then on my grandfather; and 
 having given this silent recommendation, — closed them for 
 ever. 
 
 The remains of the little man in black, notwithstanding the 
 objections of many pious people, were decently interred in the 
 church-yard of the village; and his spirit, harmless as the 
 body it once animated, has never been known to molest a 
 living being. My grandfather complied, as far as possible, 
 with his last request; he conveyed the volmnes of Linkum 
 Fidelius to his library ; — he pondered over them frequently ; — 
 but whether he grew wiser, the tradition doth not mention. 
 This much is certain, that his kindness to the poor descendant 
 of Fidelius was amply rewarded by the approbation of his own 
 heart and the devoted attachment of the old turnspit, who, 
 transferring his affection from his deceased master to his ben- 
 efactor, became his constant attendant, and was father to a 
 long line oc runty curs that still flourish in the family. And 
 thus was the Cockloft library first enriched by the invaluable 
 folios of the sage Linkum Fidelius. 
 
 LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB EELI KHAN, 
 
 TO ASBM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS 
 THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI. 
 
 Though I am often disgusted, my good Asem, with the vices 
 and absurdities of the men of this country, yet the women 
 afford me a world of amusement. Their lively prattle is as 
 diverting as the chattering of the red-tailed parrot; nor can 
 the green-headed monkey of Timandi equal them in whim and 
 playfulness. But, notwithstanding these valuable qualifica- 
 tions, I am sorry to observe they are Hot treated with half 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 241 
 
 the attention bestowed on the before - mentioned animals. 
 These infidels put their parrots in cages and chain their mon- 
 keys; but their women, instead of being carefully shut up in 
 harems and seraglios, are abandoned to the direction of their 
 own reason and suffered to run about in perfect freedom, like 
 other dom&stic animals: — this comes, Asem, of treating their 
 women as rational beings and allowing them souls. The conse- 
 quence of this piteoras neglect may easily be imagined : — they 
 have degenerated into all their native wUdness, are seldom to 
 be caught at home, and, at an early age, take to tbe streets 
 and highways, where they rove about in droves, giving almost 
 as much annoyance to the peaceable people as the troops of 
 wild dogs that infest our great cities, or the flights of locusts 
 that sometimes spread famine and desolation over whole re- 
 gions of fortuity. 
 
 This propensity to relapse into pristine wildness convinces 
 me of the untameable disposition of the sex, who may indeed 
 be partially domesticated by a long course of confinement and 
 restraint, but the moment they are restored to personal free- 
 dom, become wild as the yoimg partridge of this country, 
 which, though scarcely half hatched, wiU take to the fields 
 and run about with the shell upon its back. 
 
 Notwithstanding their wildness, however, they are remarka- 
 bly easy of access, and suffer themselves to be approached at 
 certain hours of the day without any symptoms of apprehen- 
 sion ; and I have even happily succeeded in detecting them at 
 their domestic occupations. One of the most important of 
 these consists in thumping vehemently on a kind of musical 
 instrument, and producing a confused, hideous, and indefina- 
 ble uproar, which they call the description of a battle ;— a jest, 
 no doubt, for they are wonderfully facetious at times, and 
 make e:reat practice of passing jokes upon strangers. Some- 
 times they employ themselves in painting little caricatures of 
 landscapes, wherein they display their singular drollery in 
 bantering nature fairly out of countenance ; representing her 
 tricked out in all the tawdry finery of copper skies, purple 
 rivers, calico rocks, red grass, clouds that look like old clothes 
 set adrift by the tempest, and foxy trees whose melancholy 
 foliage, drooping and curling most fantastically, reminds me 
 of an undressed perriwig that I have now and then seen hung 
 on a stick in a barber's window. At other times they employ 
 themselves in acquiring a smattering of languages spoken by 
 nations on the other side of the globe, as they find their own 
 
242 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 language not sufficiently copious to supply their constant de- 
 mands and express their multifarious ideas. But their most 
 important domestic avocation is to embroider, on satin or mus- 
 lin, flowers of a nondescript kind, in which the great art is to 
 make them as unlike »nature as possible; — or to fasten little 
 bits of silver, gold, tinsel, and glass on long strips of muslin, 
 which they drag after them with much dignity whenever they 
 go abroad ;— a fine lady, like a bird of paradise, being estimated 
 by the length of her taU. 
 
 But do not, my friend, fall into the enormous error of sup- 
 posing that the exercise of these arts is attended with any use- 
 ful or profitable result— believe me, thou couldst not indulge 
 an idea more unjust and in j urious ; for it appears to be an estab- 
 lished maxim among the women of this country, that a lady 
 loses hor dignity when she condescends to be useful, and for- 
 feits all rank in society the moment she can be convicted of 
 earning a farthing. Their labours, therefore, are directed not 
 towards supplying their household, but in decking their per- 
 sons, and — generous souls!— they deck their persons, not so 
 much to please themselves, as to gratify others, particularly 
 strangers. I am confident thou wilt stare at this, my good 
 Asem, accustomed as thou art to our eastern females, who 
 shrink in blushing timidity even from the glance of a lover, 
 and are so chary of their favours, that they even seem fearful 
 of lavishing their smiles too profusely on their husbands. Here, 
 on the contrary, the stranger has the first place in female re- 
 gard, and so far do they carry their hospitality, that I have 
 seen a fine lady shght a dozen tried friends and real admirers, 
 who lived in her smiles and made her happiness their study, 
 merely to allure the vague and wandering glances of a stranger, 
 who viewed her person with indifEerence and treated hor ad- 
 vances with contempt. By the whiskers of our sublime 
 
 bashaw, but this is highly flattering to a foreigner ! and thou 
 mayest judge how particularly pleasing to one who is, like my- 
 self, so ardent an admirer of the sex. Far be it from me to 
 condemn this extraordinary manifestation of good will— let 
 their own countrymen look to that. 
 
 Be not alarmed, I conjure thee, my dear Asem, lest I should 
 be tempted by these beautiful barbarians to break the faith I 
 owe to the three-and-twenty wives from whom my unhappy 
 destiny has perhaps severed me for ever:— no, Asem, neither 
 time nor the bitter succession of misfortunes that pursues me 
 can shake from my heart the memory of former attachments. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 243 
 
 I listen with tranqtiil heart to the strumming and prattling of 
 these fair syrens ; their whimsical paintings touch not the ten- 
 der chord of my affections ; and I would stiU defy their fasci- 
 nations, though they trailed after them trains as long as the 
 gorgeous trappings which are dragged at the heels of the holy 
 camel of Mecca : or as the tail of the great heast in our prophet's 
 vision, which measured three hundred and forty -nine leagues, 
 two miles, three furlongs, and a hand's breadth in longitude. 
 
 The dress of these women is, if possible, more eccentric and 
 whimsical than their deportment ; and they take an inordinate 
 pride in certain ornaments which are probably derived from 
 
 their savage progenitors. A woman of this country, dressed 
 
 out 'for an exhibition, is loaded with as many ornaments as a 
 Circassian slave when brought out for sale. Their heads are 
 tricked out with Uttle bits of horn or shell, cut into fantastic 
 shapes, and they seem to emulate each other in the number of 
 these singular baubles ; — ^like the women we have seen in our 
 journeys to Aleppo, who cover their heads with the entire shell 
 of a tortoise, and, thus equipped, are the envy of all their less 
 fortunate acquaintance. They also decorate their necks and 
 ears with coral, gold chains, and glass beads, and load their 
 fingers with a variety of rings ; though, I must confess, I have 
 never perceived that they wear any in their noses — as has been 
 affirmed by many travellers. We have heard much of their 
 painting themselves most hideously, and making use of bear's 
 grease in great profusion; but this, I solemnly assure thee, is a 
 misrepresentation ; civilization, no doubt, having gradually ex- 
 tirpated these nauseous practices. It is true, I have seen two 
 or three of these females, who had disguised their features with 
 paint ; but then it was merely to give a tinge of red to their 
 cheeks, and did not look very frightful ; and as to ointment, 
 they rarely use any now, except occasionally a httle Grecian 
 oil for then* hair, which gives it a glossy, greasy, and, they 
 think, very comely appearance. The last-mentioned class of 
 females, I take it for granted, have been but lately caught, 
 and stUl retain strong traits of their original savage propen- 
 sities. 
 
 The most flagrant and inexcusable fault, however, which I 
 find in these lovely savages, is the shameless and abandoned 
 exposure of their persons. Wilt not thou suspect me of exag- 
 geration when I affirm ;— wilt thou not blush for them,, most 
 discreet Mussulman, when I declare to thee, that they are so 
 lost to all sense of modesty, as to expose the whole of their 
 
244 BALM A G UNDI. 
 
 faces from their forehead to the chia, and they even go abroad 
 with their hands uncovered !— Monstrous indehcacy ! — 
 
 But -what I am going to disclose, wUl, doubtless, appear to 
 thee still more incredible. Though I cannot forbear paying a 
 tribute of admiration to the beautiful faces of these fair infi- 
 dels, yet I must give it as my firm opinion, that their persons 
 are preposterously unseemly. In vaia did I look around me, 
 on my first landing, for those divine forms of redundant pro- 
 portions, which answer to the true standard of eastern beauty •, 
 — not a single fat fair one could I behold among the multitudes 
 that thronged the streets ; the females that passed in review 
 before me, tripping sportively along, resembled a procession 
 of shadows, returning to then* .graves at the crowing of the 
 cock. 
 
 This meagreness I first ascribed to their excessive volubility; 
 for I have somewhere seen it advanced by a learned doctor, 
 that the sex were endowed with a peculiar activity of tongue, 
 in order that they might practise talking as a healthful exer- 
 cise, necessary to their Confined and sedentary mode of life. 
 This exercise, it was natural to suppose, would be carried to 
 great excess in a logocracy. — "Too true," thought I, "they 
 have converted, what was undoubtedly meant as a beneficent 
 gift, into a noxious habit, that steals the flesh from their bones 
 and the rose from their cheeks — ^they absolutely talk themselves 
 thin!" Judge then of my surprise when I was assured, not 
 long since, that this meagreness was considered the perfection 
 of personal beauty, and that many a lady starved herself, with 
 
 all the obstinate perseverance of a pious dervise into a fine 
 
 figure! "Nay, more," said my informer, "they wiU often 
 
 sacrifice their healths in this eager pursuit of skeleton beauty, 
 and drink vinegar, eat pickles, and smoke tobacco, to keep 
 themselves within the scanty outlines of the fashions." — Faugh ! 
 AUah preserve me from such beauties, who contaminate their 
 pure blood with noxious recipes ; who impiously sacrifice the 
 best gifts of Heaven, to a preposterous and mistaken vanity. 
 Ere long I shall not be surprised to see them scarring their 
 faces like the negroes of Congo, flattening their noses in imita- 
 tion of the Hottentots, or like the barbarians of Ab-al Timar, 
 distorting their lips and ears out of all natural dimensions. 
 Since I received this information, I cannot contemplate a fine 
 figure, without thinking of a vinegar cruet ; nor look at a dash- 
 ing belle, without fancying her a pot of pickled cucumbers! 
 What a difference, my friend, between these shades and the 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 245 
 
 plump beauties of Tripoli, — what a contrast between an infidel 
 fair one and my favourite wife Fatima, whom I bought by the 
 hundred weight, and had trundled home in a wheel-barrow ! 
 
 But enough for the present ; I am promised a faithful ac- 
 count of the arcana of a lady's toilette — a complete iaitiation 
 into the arts, mysteries, spells, and potions ; in short, the whole 
 chemical process by which she reduces herself down to the 
 most fashionable standard of insignificance; together with 
 specimens of the strait waistcoats, the lacings, the bandages, 
 and the various ingenious instruments with which she puts 
 nature to the rack, and tortures herseK into a proper figure to 
 be admired. 
 
 Farewell, thou sweetest of slave-drivers ! the echoes that re- 
 peat to a lover's ear the song of his mistress, are not more 
 soothiQg than tidings from those we love. Let thy answer to 
 my letters be speedy ; and never, I pray thee, for a moment, 
 cease to watch over the prosperity of my house, and the wel- 
 fare of my beloved wives. Let them want for nothing, my 
 friend; but feed them plentifully on honey, boiled rice, and 
 water gruel ; so that when I return to the blessed land of my 
 fathers, if that can ever be ! I may find them improved in size 
 and loveliness, and sleek as the graceful elephants that range 
 the green valley of Abimar, 
 
 Ever thine, 
 
 MUSTAPHA. 
 
246 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 NO. XIX.-THUESDAY, DEC. 31, 180T. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 Having returned to town, and once more formally taken 
 possession of my elbow-chair, it behooves me to discard the 
 rural feelings, and the rural sentiments, in which I have for 
 some time past indulged, and devote myself more exclusively 
 to the edification of the town. As I feel at this moment a 
 chivalric spark of gallantry playing around my heart, and one 
 of those dulcet emotions of cordiality, which an old bachelor 
 wiU sometimes entertain towards the divine sex, I am deter- 
 mined to gratify the sentiment for once, and devote this num- 
 ber exclusively to the ladies. I would not, however, have our 
 fair readers imagine that we wish to flatter ourselves into their 
 good graces ; devoutly as we adore them 1 — and what true cava- 
 lier does not, — and heartily as we desire to flourish in the mild 
 sunshine of their smiles, yet we scorn to insinuate ourselves 
 into their favour; unless it be as honest friends, sincere weU- 
 wishers, and disinterested advisers. If in the course of this 
 number they flnd us rather prodigal of our encomiums, they 
 will have the modesty to ascribe it to the excess of their own 
 merits;— if they find us extremely indulgent to their faults, 
 they will impute it rather to the superabundance of our good- 
 nature, than to any servile and illiberal fear of giving offence. 
 
 The following letter of Mustapha falls in exactly with the 
 current of my purpose. As I have before mentioned that his 
 letters are without dates, we are obliged to give them very 
 irregularly, without any regard to chronological order. 
 
 The present one appears to have been vsrritten not long after 
 his arrival, and antecedent to several already pubHshed. It is 
 more in the familiar and colloquial style than the others. 
 Will Wizard declares he has translated it with fidelity, ex- 
 cepting that he has omitted several remarks on the' waltz, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 247 
 
 ■which the honest Mussulman eulogizes with great enthusiasm; 
 comparing it to certain voluptuous -dances of the seragho. 
 WUl regretted exceedingly that the indelicacy of several of 
 these observations compelled their total exclusion, as he 
 wishes to give all possible encouragement to this popular and 
 amiable exhibition. 
 
 LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, 
 
 TO MULEY HELIM AL RAGGI, SXJENAMED THE AGREEABLE RAGA- 
 MUFFIN, CHIEF MOUNTEBANK AND BUFFA-DANOER TO HIS HIGH- 
 NESS. 
 
 The numerous letters which I have written to our friend the 
 slave-driver, as weU as those to thy kinsman the snorbr, and 
 which, doubtless, were read to thee, honest Muley, have, in all 
 probability, awakened thy curiosity to know further partic- 
 ulars concerning the manners of the barbarians, who hold me 
 in such ignominious captivity. I was lately at one of their 
 public ceremonies, which, at first, perplexed me exceedingly 
 as to its object; but as the explanations of a friend have let 
 me somewhat into the secret, and as it seems to bear no small 
 analogy to thy profession, a description of it may contribute 
 to thy amusement, if not to thy instruction. 
 
 A few days since, just as I had finished my coffee, and was 
 perfuming my whiskers, preparatory to a morning walk, I was 
 waited upon by an inhabitant of this place, a gay young in- 
 fidel who has of late cultivated my acquaintance. He pre- 
 sented me with a square bit of painted pasteboard, which, he 
 informed me, would entitle me to admittance to the city as- 
 sembly. Curious to know the meaning of a phrase which was 
 entirely new to me, I requested an explanation; when my 
 friend informed me that the assembly was a numerous con- 
 course of young people of both sexes, who, on certain occa- 
 sions, gathered together to dance about a large room with 
 violent gesticulation, and try to out-dress each other. — "In 
 short," said he, "if you wish to see the natives in all their 
 glory, there's ho place like the City Assembly ; so you must 
 go there, and sport your whiskers." Though the matter of 
 sporting my whiskers was considerably above my apprehen^ 
 
248 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 sion, yet Inow began, as I thought, to understand him. I had 
 heard of the war dances of the natives, which are a ktad of 
 religious institution, and had little doubt but that this must 
 be a solemnity of the kind — upon a prodigious great scale. 
 Anxious as I am to contemplate these strange people in every 
 situation, I willingly acceded to his proposal, and, to be the 
 more at ease, I determined to lay aside m^y Turkish dress, and 
 appear vn plain garments of the fashion of this country ; as is 
 my custom whenever I wish to mingle in a crowd without ex- 
 citing the attention of the gaping multitude. 
 
 It was long after the shades of night had fallen, before my 
 friend appeared to conduct me to the assembly. "These in- 
 fidels," thought I, "shroud themselves in mystery, and seek 
 the aid of gloom and darkness, to heighten the soleronity of 
 their pious orgies." Eesolving to conduct myself with that 
 decent respect which every stranger owes to the customs of 
 the land ia which he sojourns, I chastised my features into an 
 expression of sober reverence, and stretched my face into a 
 degree of longitude suitable to the ceremony I was about to 
 witness. Spite of myself, I felt an emotion of awe steahng 
 over my senses as I approached the majestic pUe. My im- 
 agination pictured something similar to a descent into the 
 cave of Dom-Daniel, where the necromancers of the East are 
 of taught their infernal arts. I entered with the same gravity 
 demeanour that I would have approached the holy temple 
 at Mecca, and bowed my head three times as I passed the 
 threshold. " Head of the mighty Amrou !" thought I, on being 
 ushered into a splendid saloon, ' ' what a display is here ! surely 
 I am transported to the mansions of the Houris, the elysium of 
 the faithful !"— How tame appeared aU the descriptions of en- 
 chanted palaces in our Arabian poetry 1— wherever I turned 
 my eyes, the quick glances of beauty dazzled my vision and 
 ravished my heart ; lovely virgins fluttered by me, dai-ting 
 imperial looks of conquest, or beaming such smiles of invita- 
 tion, as did Gabriel when he beckoned our holy prophet to 
 Heaven. Shall I own the weakness of thy friend, good Muley? 
 —while thus gazing on the enchanted scene before me, I, for 
 a moment, forgot my country; and even the memory of my 
 three-and-twenty wives faded from my heart ; my thoughts 
 were bewildered and led astray by the charms of these bewitch- 
 ing savages, and I sunk, for a while, into that delicious state of 
 mind, where the senses, all enchanted, and all striving for 
 mastery, produce an endless variety of tiimultuous, yet pleas- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. . 249 
 
 ing emotions. Oh, Muley, never shall I again wonder that an 
 infidel should prove a recreant to the single sohtary wife allot- 
 ted to him, when, even thy friend, armed with all the precepts 
 of Mahomet, can so easily prove faithless to three-and-twenty ! 
 
 "Whither have you led me?" said I, at length, to my com- 
 panion, "and to whom do these beautiful creatures belong! 
 Certainly this must be the seraglio of the grand bashaw of the 
 city, and a most happy bashaw must he be, to possess treas- 
 ures, which even his highness of Tripoh cannot parallel." 
 "Have a care," cried my companion, "how you talk about 
 seraglios, or you'll have all these gentle nymphs about your 
 ears; for seraglio is a word which, beyond all others, they 
 abhor; — ^most of them," continued he, "have no lord" and 
 master, but come here to catch one — they're in the market, as 
 we term it." "Ah, hah!" said I, exultingly, " then you really 
 have a fair, or slave-market, such as we have in the east, 
 where the faithful are provided with the choicest virgins of 
 
 Georgia and Circassia? by our glorious sun of Afric, but I 
 
 should Kke to select some ten or a dozen wives from so lovely 
 an assemblage ! Pray, what would you suppose they might be 
 bought for?" 
 
 Before I could receive an answer, my attention was attracted 
 by two or three good-looking, middle-sized men, who, being 
 dressed in black, a colour universally worn in this country by 
 the muftis and dervises, I immediately concluded to be high- 
 priests, and was confirmed in my original opinion that this was 
 a reUgious ceremony. These reverend personages are entitled 
 managers, and enjoy unlimited authority in the aissembhes, 
 being armed with swords, with which, I am told, they would 
 infallibly put any lady to death who infringed the laws of the 
 temple. They walked round the room with great solemnity, 
 and, with an air of profound importance and mystery, put a 
 little piece of folded paper in each fair hand, which I concluded 
 were religious talismans. One of them dropped on the floor, 
 whereupon I slily put my foot on it, and, watching an oppor- 
 tunity, picked it up unobserved, and found it to contain some 
 iminteUigible words and the mystic number 9. What were its 
 virtues I know not; except that I put it in my pocket, and 
 have hitherto been preserved from my fit of the lumbago, 
 which I generally have about this season of the year, evei' 
 since I tumbled into the well of Zim-zim on my pilgrimage to 
 Mecca. I enclose it to thee in this letter, presuming it to be 
 particularly serviceable against the dangers of thy profession. 
 
250 . ISALMAGUJSUI. 
 
 Shortly after the distribution of these talismans, one of the 
 high-priests stalked into the middle of the room with great 
 majesty, and clapped his hands three times ; a loud explosion 
 of music succeeded f roin a number of black, yeUow, and white 
 musicians, perched in a kind of cage over the grand entrance. 
 The company were thereupon thrown into great confusion and 
 apparent consternation. — They hurried to and fro about tho 
 room, and at length formed themselves into little groups of 
 eight persons, half male and half female; — the music struck 
 into something Hke harmony, and, in a moment, to my utter 
 astonishment and dismay, they were aU seized with what I 
 concluded to be a paroxysm of religious phrenzy, tossing about 
 their heads in a ludicrous style from side to side, and indulging 
 in extravagant contortions of figure ; — now throwing their heels 
 into the air, and anon whirling round with the velocity of the 
 eastern idolaters, who think they pay a grateful homage to the 
 sun by nnitatlng his motions. I expected every moment to 
 see them fall down in convulsions, foam at the mouth, and 
 shriek with fancied inspiration. As usual the females seemed 
 most fervent in their religious exercises, and performed them 
 with a melancholy expression of feature that was peculiarly 
 touching ; but I was highly gratified by the exemplary conduct 
 of several male devotees, who, though their gesticulations 
 would intimate a wild merriment of the feelings, maintained 
 throughout as inflexible a gravity of countenance as so many 
 monkeys of the island of Borneo at their anticks. 
 
 "And pray," said I, "who is the divinity that presides in 
 
 this splendid mosque?" "The divinity !— oh, I understand— 
 
 you mean the telle of the evening ; we have a new one every 
 season: the one at present in fashion is that lady you see 
 yonder, dressed in white, with pink ribands, and a crowd of 
 adorers around her." " Truly," cried I, "this is the pleasant- 
 est deity I have encoxmtered in the whole course of my travels ; 
 — so familiar, so condescending, and so merry withal ; — why, 
 her very worshippers take her by the hand, and whisper in hor 
 
 ear." "My good Mussulman," replied my friend, with great 
 
 gravity, "I perceive you are completely in an error concern- 
 ing the intent of this ceremony. Tou are now in a place of 
 public amusement, not of pubhc worship;— and the pretty- 
 looking young men you see making such violent and grotesque 
 distortions, are merely indulging in our favourite amusement 
 of dancing." " I cry your mercy," exclaimed I, "these, then, 
 are the dancing men and women of the town, such as we have 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 251 
 
 in our principal cities, who hire themselves out for the enter- 
 tainment of the wealthy ;— but, pray who pays them for this 
 
 fatiguing exhibition?" My friend regarded me for a moment 
 
 with an air of whimsical perplexity, as if doubtful whether I 
 
 was in jest or earnest. " Sblood, man," cried he, "these are 
 
 some of our greatest people, our fashionables, who are merely 
 
 dancing here for amusement." Dancing for amusement! 
 
 think of that, Muley !— thou, whose greatest pleasure is to chew 
 opium, smoke tobacco, loU on a couch, and doze thyseK into 
 
 the regions of the Houris ! Dancing for amusement I — shall 
 
 I never cease having occasion to laugh at the absurdities of 
 these barbarians, who are laborious in their recreations, and 
 indolent only in. their hours of business? Dancing for amuse- 
 ment! — ^the very idea makes my bones ache, and I never think 
 of it without being obliged to apply my handkerchief to my 
 forehead, and fan myself into some degree of coolness. 
 
 "And pray," said I, when my astonishment had a little 
 subsided, " do these musicians also toil for amusement, or are 
 they confined to their cage, like birds, to sing for the gratifica- 
 tion of others?— I should think the Tormer was the case, from 
 the animation with which they flourish their elbows." — "Not 
 so," replied my friend, "they are weU paid, which is no more 
 than just, for I assure you they are the most important per- 
 sonages in the room. The fiddler puts the whole assembly in 
 motion, and directs their movements, like the master of a pup- 
 pet-show, who sets all his pasteboard gentry ticking by a jerk 
 of his fingers : — there, now — ^look at that dapper little gentle- 
 man yonder, who appears to be suffering the pangs of dislocar 
 tion in every limb : he is the most expert puppet in the room, 
 and performs, not so much for his own amusement, as for that 
 of the by-standers."— Just then the little gentleman, having 
 finished one of his paroxysms of activity, seemed to be looking 
 round for applause from the spectators. Feeling myself really 
 much obliged to him for his exertions, I made him a low bow 
 of thanks, but nobody followed my example, which I thought 
 a singular instance of ingratitude. 
 
 Thou wilt perceive, friend Muley, that the dancing of these 
 barbarians is totally different from the science professed by 
 thee in Tripoli ; — the country, in fact, is afSicted by numerous 
 epidemical diseases, which travel from house to house, from 
 city to city, with the regularity of a caravan. Among these, 
 the most formidable is this dancing mania, which prevails 
 chiefly throughout the winter. It at first seized on a few peo- 
 
252 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 pie of fashion, and being indulged in moderation, was a cheerful 
 exercise ; but in a little time, by quick advances, it infected all 
 classes of the community, and became a raging epidemic. 
 The doctors immediately, as is their usual way, instead of 
 devising a remedy, fell together by the ears, to decide whether 
 it was native or imported, and the sticklers for the latter 
 opinion traced it to a cargo of trumpery from France, as they 
 had before hunted down the yellow-fever to a bag of coffee 
 from the West Indies. What makes this disease the more 
 formidable is, that the patients seem infatuated with their 
 malady, abandon themselves to its unbounded ravages, and 
 expose their persons to wintry storms and midnight airs, more 
 fatal, in this capricious climate, than the withering Simoom 
 blast of the desert. 
 
 I know not whether it is a sight most whimsical or melan- 
 choly, to witness a fit of this dancing malady. The lady hops 
 up to the gentleman, who stands at the distance of about three 
 paces, and then capers back again to her place ; — the gentle- 
 man of course does the same ; then they skip one way, then 
 they jump another ; — then they turn their backs to each other ; 
 — then they seize each other and shake hands ; then they whirl 
 round, and throw themselves into a thousand grotesque and 
 ridiculous attitudes ; — sometimes on one leg, sometimes on the 
 other, and sometimes on no leg at all ;— and this they call ex- 
 hibiting the graces ! — By the nineteen thousand capers of the 
 great mountebank of Damascus, but these graces must be 
 something like the crooked-backed dwarf Shabrac, who is 
 sometimes permitted to amuse his highness by imitating the 
 tricks of a monkey. These fits continue at short intervals 
 from four to five hours, tUl at last the lady is led off, faint, 
 languid, exhausted, and panting, to her carriage; — rattles 
 home;— passes a night of feverish restlessness, cold perspira- 
 tions and troubled sleep ; — arises late next morning, if she rises 
 at aU, is nervous, petidant, or a prey, to languid indifference 
 aU day;— a mere household spectre, neither giving nor receiv- 
 ing enjoyment ; in the evening hurries to another dance ; re- 
 ceives an unnatural exhilaration from the lights, the music 
 the crowd, and the unmeaning bustle ; — flutters, sparkles, and 
 blooms for a whUe, until the transient deliriima Tseing past, the 
 infatuated maid droops and languishes into apathy again ; — ^is 
 again led ofE to her carriage, and the next morning rises to go 
 through exactly the same joyless routine. 
 
 And yet, wilt thou believe it, my dear Eaggi, these are 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 253 
 
 rational beings: nay more, their countrymen would faia per- 
 suade me they have souls ! — Is it not a thousand times to be 
 lamented that beings, endowed with charms that might warm 
 even the frigid heart of a dervise ; — with social and endearing 
 powers, that would render them the joy and pride of the 
 harem;— should surrender themselves to a habit of heartless 
 dissipation, which preys imperceptibly on the roses of the 
 cheek; — ^which robs the eye of its lustre, the mouth of its 
 dimpled smile, the spirits of their cheerful hilarity, and the 
 limbs of their elastic vigour; — which hurries them off ia the 
 spring-time of existence ; or, if they survive, yields to the arms 
 of a youthful bridegroom a frame wrecked in the storms of 
 dissipation, and struggling with premature infirmity. Alas, 
 Muley ! may I not ascribe to this cause, the number of little 
 old women I meet with in this country, from the age of eigh- 
 teen to eight-and-twenty? 
 
 In sauntering down the room, my attention was attracted 
 by a smoky painting, which, on nearer examination, I found 
 consisted of two female figures crowning a bust with a wreath 
 of laurel. "This; I suppose," cried I, "was some favourite 
 dancer in his time?" — " Oh, no," repHed my friend, "he was 
 only a general." — "Good; but then he must have been great 
 at a cotUlion, or expert at a fiddlestick — or why is his memorial 
 here?" — " Quite the contrary," answered my companion, "his- 
 tory makes no mention of his ever having flourished a fiddle- 
 stick, or figured in a single dance. You have no doubt, heard 
 of him; he was the illustrious Washestgton, the father and 
 deliverer of his country; and, as our nation is remarkable for 
 gratitude to great men, it always does honour to their mem- 
 ory, by placing their monuments over the doors of taverns, or 
 in the corners of dancing-rooms." 
 
 From thence my friend and I strolled into a small apart- 
 ment adjoining the grand saloon, where I beheld a number of 
 grave-looking persons with venerable gray heads, but without 
 beards, which I thought very unbecoming, seated around a 
 table, studying hieroglyphics ; — I approached them with rever- 
 ence as so many magi, or learned men, endeavouring to expound 
 the mysteries of Egyptian science: several of them threw 
 down money, which I supposed was a reward proposed for 
 some great discovery, when presently one of them spread his 
 hieroglyphics on the table, exclaimed triumphantly, "two 
 bullets and a bragger!" and swept all the money into his 
 pocket. He has discovered a key to the hieroglyphics, thought 
 
254 SALMA O UNDI. 
 
 I ; — ^happy mortal ! no doubt his name will be immortalized. 
 Willing, however, to be satisfied, I looked round on my com- 
 panion with an inquiring eye — he understood me, and in- 
 formed me, that these were a company of friends, who had 
 met together to win each other's money, and be agi-eeable. 
 "Is that aU?" exclaimed I, "why, then, I pray you, make 
 way, and let me escape from this temple of abominations, or 
 who knows but these people, who meet together to toU, woriy, 
 and fatigue themselves to death, and give it the name of pleas- 
 ure ; — and who win each other's money by way of being agree- 
 able ; — may some one of them take a hking to me, and pick my 
 pocket, or break my head in a paroxysm of hearty good- will!" 
 
 Thy friend, Mustapha. 
 
 BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 
 
 Nunc est bibendum, nuncpede libero 
 Pulsanda tellus, — Hor. 
 
 Now is the tyme for wine and myrtlif ul sportes, 
 For dance, and song, and disportes of syche sortes. 
 
 -Link. Md. 
 
 The winter campaign has opened. Fashion has siunmoned 
 her nimierous legions at the sound of trumpet, tamborine, and 
 drum ; and all the harmonious minstrelsy of the orchestra, to 
 hasten from the duU, silent, and insipid glades and groves, 
 where they have vegetated during the summer; recovering 
 from the ravages of the last winter's campaign. Our fair ones 
 have hurried to town, eager to pay their devotions to this tute- 
 lary deity, and to make an offering at her shrine of the few 
 pale and transient roses they gathered in their healthful re- 
 treat. The fiddler rosins his bow, the card-table devotee is 
 shuffling her pack ; the young ladies are industriously spang- 
 ling muslins; and the tea-party heroes are airing their cha- 
 peaux bras, and pease-blossom breeches, to prepare for figur- 
 ing in the gay circle of smiles, and graces, and beauty. Now 
 the fine lady forgets her country friends in the hurry of 
 fashionable engagements, or receives the simple intruder, who 
 has foolishly accepted her thousand pressing invitations, with 
 such politeness that the poor soul determines never to come 
 again; — now the gay buck, who erst figured at Ballston, and 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 255 
 
 quaffed the pure spring, exclianges the sparkling water for 
 still more sparkling Champaign; and deserts the nymph of the 
 fountain, to enlist under the standard of joUy Bacchus. In 
 short, now is the important time of the year in which to har- 
 angue the bon-ton reader ; and, like some ancient hero in front 
 of the battle, to spirit him up to deeds of noble daring, or still 
 more noble suffering, in the ranks of fashionable warfare. 
 
 Such, indeed, has been my intention; but the number of 
 cases which have lately corae before me, and the variety of 
 complaints I have received from a crowd of honest and well- 
 meaning correspondents, call for more immediate attention. 
 A host of appeals, petitions, and letters of advice are now be- 
 fore me ; and I believe the shortest way to satisfy my peti- 
 tioners, memorialists, and advisers, wiU be to pubhsh their 
 letters, as I ouspect the object of most of them is merely to get 
 into print. 
 
 TO ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 
 
 Sir: — As you appear to have taken to yourself the trouble 
 of meddling in the concerns of the beau monde, I take the 
 liberty of appealing to you on a subject which, though con- 
 sidered merely as a very good joke, has occasioned me great 
 vexation and expense. You must know I pride myself on 
 being very useful to the ladies : that is, I take boxes for them 
 at the theatre, go shopping with them, supply them with 
 bouquets, and furnish them with novels from the circulating 
 library. In consequence of these attentions, I am become a 
 great favourite, and there is seldom a party going on in the 
 city without my having an invitation. The grievance I have 
 to mention is the exchange of hats which takes place on these 
 occasions; for, to speak my mind freely, there are certain 
 young gentlemen who seem to consider fashionable parties as 
 mere places to barter old clothes; and I am informed that a 
 number of them manage, by this great system of exchange, to 
 keep their crowns decently covered without their hatter suffer- 
 ing in the least by it. 
 
 It was but lately that I went to a private ball with a new 
 hat, and on returning, in the latter part of the evening, and 
 asking for it, the scoundrel of a servant, with a broad grin, 
 informed me that the new hats had been dealt out half an hour 
 since, and they were then on the third quality; and I was in 
 
256 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 the end obKged to borrow a young lady's beaver rather than 
 go home with any of the ragged remnants that were left. 
 
 Now I would wi^h to know if there is no possibility of hav- 
 ing these ofiEenders punished by law; and whether it would 
 not be advisable for ladies to mention in their cards of invita- 
 tion, as a postscript, "stealing of hats and shawls positively 
 prohibited." At any rate I would thank you, Mr. Evergreen, 
 to discountenance the thing totally, by publishing in your 
 paper that stealing a hat is no joke. 
 
 Your hiunble servant, Walter Withees. 
 
 My correspondent is informed that the police, have deter- 
 mined to take this matter into consideration, and have set 
 apart Saturday mornings for the cognizance of fashionable 
 larcenies. 
 
 Mr. Evergreen — Sir: — Do you think a married woman may 
 lawfully put her husband right in a story, before strangers, 
 when she knows him to be in the wrong ; and can any thiag 
 authorize a wife in the exclamation of — "lord, my dear, how 
 can you say so?" Margaret Timson. 
 
 Dear Anthony: — Going down Broadway this morning in a 
 great hurry, I ran full against an object which at first put me 
 to a prodigious nonplus. Observing it to be dressed in a man's 
 hat, a cloth overcoat and spatterdashes, I framed my apology 
 accordingly, exclaiming, "my dear sir, I ask ten thousand 
 pardons;— I assure you, sir, it was entirely accidental : — pray 
 excuse me, sir," &c. At every one of these excuses the thing 
 answered me with a downright laugh ; at which I was not a 
 little surprised, until, on resorting to my pocket-glass, I dis- 
 covered that it was no other than my old acquaintance, Cla- 
 rinda Trollop ; — I never was more chagrined in my life ; for 
 being an old bachelor, I like to appear as young as possible, 
 and am always boastmg of the goodness of my eyes. I beg of 
 you, Mr. Evergreen, if you have any feeling for your contem- 
 poraries, to discourage this hermaphrodite mode of dress, for 
 really, if the fashion take, we poor bachelors will be utterly at 
 a loss to distinguish a woman from a man. Pray let me know 
 your opinion, sir, whether a lady who wears a man's hat and 
 spatterdashes before marriage, may not be apt to usurp some 
 other article of his dress afterwards. 
 
 Tour humble servant, Eoderic "Worry. 
 
BALMAGUNBI. 257 
 
 Dear Mr. Evergreen:— The other night, at Eichard the 
 Third, I sat behind three gentlemen, who talked very loud on 
 the subject of Richard's wooing Lady Ann directly in the face 
 of his crimes against that lady. One of them declared such an 
 unnatural scene would be hooted at iu China. Pray, sir, was 
 that Mr. Wizard? Selina Badger. 
 
 P. S. The gentleman I allude to had a pocket-glass, and 
 wore his hair fastened behind by a tortoise-shell comb, with 
 two teeth wanting. 
 
 Mr. Evergrin — Sir: — Being a little curious in the afEairs of 
 the toilette, I was much interested by the sage Mustapha's 
 remarks, in your last number, concerning the art of manu- 
 facturing a modem fine lady. I would have you caution your 
 fair readers, however, to be very careful in the management 
 of their machinery; as a deplorable accident happened last 
 assembly, in consequence of the architecture of a lady's figure 
 not being sufficiently strong. In the middle of one of the 
 cotillions, the company was suddenly alarmed by a tre- 
 mendous crash at the lower end of the room, and, on crowding 
 to the place, discovered that it was a fine figure which had 
 unfortunately broken down from too great exertion in a 
 pigeon wing. By great good luck I secured the corset, which 
 I carried home in triumph; and the next morning had it 
 publicly dissected, and a lecture read on it at Surgeon's Hall. 
 I have since commenced a dissertation on the subject; in 
 which I shall treat of the superiority of those figures manu- 
 factured by steel, stay-tape, and whale-bone, to those formed 
 by dame nature. I shall show clearly that the Venus de 
 Medicis has no pretension to beauty of form, as she never 
 wore stays, and her waist is in exact proportion to the rest of 
 her body. I shall inquire into the mysteries of compression, 
 and how tight a figure can be laced without danger of faint- 
 ing; and whether it would not be advisable for a lady, when 
 dressing for a ball, to be attended by the family physician, as 
 culprits are when tortured on the rack, to know how much 
 more nature wUl endure. I shall prove that ladies have dis- 
 covered the secret of that notorious juggler, who offered to 
 squeeze himself into a quart bottle; and I shall demonstrate, 
 to the satisfaction of every fashionable reader, that there is a 
 degree of heroism in purchasing a preposterously slender 
 waist at the expense of an old age of decrepitude and rheu- 
 
258 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 matics. This dissertation shall be published as soon as fin- 
 ished, and distributed gratis among boarding-school madams 
 and all worthy matrons who are ambitious that their 
 daughters should sit strait, move like clock-work, and "do 
 credit to their bringing up. " In the mean time, I have hung 
 up the skeleton of the corset in the museum, beside a dissected 
 weazle and a stufiEed alligator, where it may be inspected by 
 all those naturalists who are fond of studying the "humar 
 form divine." Yours, &c. Julian Cognous. 
 
 P. S. By accurate calculation I find it is dangerous for a 
 fine figure, when full dressed, to pronounce a word of more 
 than three syllables. Fine Figure, if in love, may indulge in 
 a gentle sigh ; but a sob is hazardous. Fine Figure may smile 
 with safety, may even venture as far as a giggle, but must 
 never risk a loud laugh. Figure must never play the part of 
 a confidante; as at a tea-party some fine evenings since, a 
 young lady, whose unparalleled impalpability of waist was the 
 envy of the drawing-room, burst with an important secret, 
 and had three ribs — of her corset ! — fractured on the spot. 
 
 Me. Evergreen — Sir: — I am one of those industrious gem- 
 m.en who labour hard to obtain currency in the fashionable 
 world. I have went to great expense in Httle boots, short 
 vests, and long breechfes ; — my coat is regularly imported, per 
 stage, from Philadelphia, duly insured against all risks, and 
 my boots are smuggled from Bond-street. I have lounged in 
 Broadway with one of the most crooked walking-sticks I could 
 procure, and have sported a pair of salmon-coloured small- 
 clothes, and flame-coloured stockings, at every concert and 
 ball to which I could purchase admission. Being afleared 
 that I might possibly appear to less advantage as a pedestrian, 
 in consequence of my being rather short and a little bandy, I 
 have lately hired a tall horse with cropped ears and a cocked 
 tail, on which I have joined the cavalcade of pretty gemmen, 
 who exhibit bright stirrups every fine morning in Broadway 
 and take a canter of two miles per day, at the rate of three 
 hundred dollars per annum. But, sir, all this expense has 
 been laid out in vain, for I can scarcely get a partner at an 
 assembly, or an invitation to a tea-party. Pray, sir, inform 
 me what more I can do to acquire admission into the true 
 stylish circles, and whether it woidd not be advisable to 
 
SALMA G UNDI. 259 
 
 charter a curricle for a month and have my cypher put on it, 
 as is done by certain dashers of my, acquaintance. 
 
 Yours to serve, Malvolio Dubstee. 
 
 TEA: A POEM. 
 
 FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 
 
 And earnestly recommended to the attention of all Maidens of 
 a certain age. 
 
 Old time, my dear girls, is a knave who in truth 
 From the fairest of beauties wiU pUfer their youth; 
 Who, by constant attention and wily deceit. 
 For ever is coaxing some grace to retreat ; 
 And, like crafty seducer, with subtle approach. 
 The further indulged, wiU still further encroach. 
 Since this "thief of the world" has made off with your bloom, 
 And left you some score of stale years in its room- 
 Has depriv'd you of all those gay dreams, that would dance 
 In your brains at fifteen, and your bosoms entrance; 
 And has forc'd you almost to renounce, ia despair. 
 The hope of a husband's affection and care- 
 Since such is the-case, and a case rather hard ! 
 Permit one who holjds you in special regard. 
 To furnish such hints in your loveless estate 
 As may shelter yoiu- names from distraction and hate. 
 Too often our maidens, grown aged, I Ween, 
 Indulge to excess in the workings of spleen ; 
 And at times, when annoy'd by the slights of mankind. 
 Work off their resentment — by speaking their mind : 
 Assemble together in snuff-taking clan. 
 And hold round the tea-urn a solemn divan. 
 A convention of tatthng— a tea party hight. 
 Which, like meeting of witches, is brew'd up at night: 
 tVhere each matron arrives, fraught with tales of surprise, 
 With knowing suspicion and doubtful surmise; 
 Like the broomstick whirl'd hags that appear in Macbeth, 
 Each bearing some relic of venom or death, 
 " To stir up the toil and to double the trouble. 
 That fire may burn, and that cauldron may bubble." 
 
260 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 When the party commences, all starch'd and aU glmn, 
 They talk of the weather, their corns, or sit mum: 
 They will tell you of cambric, of ribands, of lace. 
 How cheap they were sold — and will name you the place. 
 They discourse of their colds, and they hem and they cough, 
 And complain of their servants to pass the time ofE ; 
 Or list to the tale of some doating mamma 
 How her ten weeks' old baby will laugh and say taa ! 
 
 But tea, that enlivener of wit and of soul — 
 More loquacious by far than the draughts of the bowl, 
 Soon unloosens the tongue and ehhvens the mind. 
 And enlightens their eyes to the faults of mankind. 
 
 'Twas thus with the Pythia, who served at the fount. 
 That flow'd near the far-faraed Parnassian mount, 
 While the steam was inhal'd of the sulphuric spring. 
 Her vision expanded, her fancy took wing ; — 
 By its aid she pronounced the oracular wiU 
 That Apollo commanded his sons to fufill. 
 But alas ! the sad vestal, performing the rite, 
 Appear'd like a demon— terrific to sight. 
 
 E'en the priests of ApoUo averted their eyes, 
 And the temple of Delphi resounded her cries, 
 But quitting the nymph of the tripod of yore, 
 We return to the dames of the tea-pot once more. 
 
 In harmless chit-chat an acquaintance they roast, 
 And serve up a friend, as they serve up a toast ; 
 Some gentle faux pas, or some female mistake. 
 Is hke sweetmeats delicious, or reUshed as cake ; 
 A bit of broad scandal is like a dry crust, 
 It would stick in the throat, so they butter it first 
 With a little affected good-nature, and cry 
 " No body regrets the thing deeper than I." 
 Our young ladies nibble a good name in play 
 As for pastime they nibble a biscuit away: 
 While with shrugs and surmises, the toothless old dame, 
 As she mumbles a crust she will mumble a name. 
 And as the feU sisters astonished the Scot, 
 In predicting of Banquo's descendants the lot. 
 Making shadows of kings, amid flashes of light, 
 To appear iu array and to frown in his sight. 
 So they conjure up spectres all hideous in hue. 
 Which, as shades of their neighbours, are passed in review. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 261 
 
 The wives of our cits of inferior degree, 
 "Will soak up repute in a little bohea; 
 The potion is vulgar, and vulgar the slang 
 With which on their neighbours' defects they harangue; 
 But the scandal improves, a refinement in wrong ! 
 As our matrons are richer and rise to souchong. 
 With hyson— a beverage that's stUl more refin'd. 
 Our ladies of fashion enUven their mind, 
 And by nods, innuendoes, and hints, and what not, 
 Eeputations and tea send together to pot. 
 While madam in cambrics and laces array'd, 
 With her plate and her liveries in splendid parade, 
 Will drink in imperial a friend at a sup, 
 Or in gunpowder blow them by dozens aU up. 
 Ah me ! how I groan when with full swelling sail 
 Wafted stately along by the favouring gale, 
 A China ship proudly arrives in our bay. 
 Displaying her streamers and blazing away. 
 Oh! more fell to our port, is the cargo she bears. 
 Than grenadoes, torpedoes, or warhke affairs: 
 Each chest is a bombshell thrown into our town 
 To shatter repute and bring character down. 
 
 Ye Saniquas, ye Chinquas, Chouquas, so free. 
 Who discharge on our coast your cursed quantums of tea. 
 Oh think, as ye waft the sad weed from your strand, 
 Of the plagues and vexations ye deal to our land. 
 As the Upas' dread breath, o'er the plain where it flies. 
 Empoisons and blasts each green blade that may rise, 
 So, wherever the leaves of your shrub find their way, 
 The social affections soon suffer decay : 
 Like to Java's drear waste they embarren the heart. 
 Till the blossoms of love and of friendship depart. 
 
 Ah, ladies, and was it by heaven design'd, 
 That ye should be merciful, loving and kind ! 
 Did it form you like angels, and send you below - 
 To prophesy peace — to bid charity flow ! 
 And have ye thus left your primeval estate. 
 And wandered so widely— so strangely of late? 
 Alas ! the sad cause I too plainly can see— 
 These evils have all come upon you through tea! 
 Cursed weed, that can make our fair spirits resign 
 The character mUd of their mission divine ; 
 
262 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 That can blot from their bosoms that tenderness true, 
 
 Which from female to fem^ale for ever is due ! 
 
 Oh, how nice is the texture — how fragile the frame 
 
 Of that delicate blossom, a female's fair fame ! 
 
 "Tis the sensitive plant, it recoils from the breath 
 
 And shrinks from the touch as if pregnant with death. 
 
 How often, how often, has innocence sigh'd ; 
 
 Has beauty been reft of its honour— its pride; 
 
 Has virtue, though pure as an angel of hght, 
 
 Been painted as dark as a demon of night : 
 
 All ofEer'd up victims, an auto da fe, 
 
 At the gloomy cabals— the dark orgies of tea! 
 
 If I, in the remnant that's left me of Ufe, 
 Am to suffer the torments of slanderous strife. 
 Let me fall, I implore, ia the slang-whanger's claw, 
 Where the evil is open, and subject to law. 
 Not nibbled, and mumbled, and put to the rack, 
 By the sly underminings of tea party clack: 
 Condemn me, ye gods, to a newspaper roasting, 
 But spare me I oh, spare me, a tea table toastiag ! 
 
 NO. XX.-MONDAY JANUARY 25, 1808. 
 
 FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. 
 
 Extremum Mmc mihi concede Inborem, Virg. 
 " Soft you, a word or two before we part." 
 
 In this season of festivity, when the gate of time swings 
 open on its hinges, and an honest rosy-faced New-Tear comes 
 waddling in, like a jolly fat-sided alderman, loaded with good 
 wishes, good humour, and minced pies ;— at this joyous era it 
 has been the custom, from time immemorial, in this ancient 
 and respectable city, for periodical writers, from reverend 
 grave, and potent essayists like ourselves! down to the 
 humble but industrious editors of magazines, reviews, and 
 newspapers, to tender their subscribers the compliments of 
 the season; and when they have slily thawed their hearts with 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 263 
 
 a little of the sunshine of flattery, to conclude by dehcateiy 
 dunning them for their arrears of subscription money. In 
 like manner the carriers of newspapers, who imdoubtedly 
 belong to the ancient and honourable order of Uterati, do regu- 
 larly, at the commencement of the year, saltite their patrons 
 with abundance of excellent advice, conveyed in excee^B 
 good poetry, for which the aforesaid good-natured patrons are 
 well pleased to pay them exactly twenty -five cents. In walk- 
 ing the streets I am every day saluted with good wishes from 
 old gray-headed negroes, whom I never recollect to have seen 
 before ; and it was but a few days ago, that I was called to 
 receive the compliments of an ugly old woman, who last 
 spring was employed by Mrs. Cockloft to whitewash my room 
 and put things in order; a phrase which, if rightly under- 
 stood, means little else than huddling every thing into holes 
 and corners, so that if I want to find any particular article, 
 it IS, in the language of an humble but expressive saying, — 
 "looking for a needle in a haystack." Not recognizing my 
 visitor, I demanded by what authority she wished me a 
 " Happy New- Year?" Her claim was one of the weakest she 
 could have urged, for I have an innate and mortal antipathy 
 to this custom of putting things to rights ;— so giving the old 
 witch a pistereen, I desired her forthwith to mount her broom- 
 stick, and ride o£E as fast as possible. 
 
 Of all the various ranks of society, the bakers alone, to 
 their immortal honour be it recorded, depart from this prac- 
 tice of making a market of congratulations ; and, in addition 
 to always allowing thirteen to the dozen, do with great liber- 
 ality, instead of drawing on the purses of their customers at 
 the New-Tear, present them with divers large, fair, spiced 
 cakes; which, like the shield of Achilles, or an Egyptian 
 obelisk, are adorned with figures of a variety of strange 
 animals, that, in their conformation, out-marvel all the wild 
 wonders of nature. 
 
 This honest gray-beard custom of setting apart a certain 
 portion of this good-for-nothing existence for the purposes of 
 cordiality, social merriment, and good cheer, is one of the 
 inestimable rehcs handed down to us from our worthy Dutch 
 ancestors. In perusing one of the manuscripts from my 
 worthy grandfather's mahogany chest of drawers, I find the 
 new year was celebrated with great festivity during that 
 golden age of our city, when the reins of government were 
 held by the renowned Eip Van Dam, who always did honour 
 
264 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 to the season by seeing out the old year; a ceremony which 
 consisted in plying his guests with bumpers, until not one of 
 them was capable of seeing. "Truly," observes my grand- 
 father, who was generally of these parties — " Truly, he was a 
 most stately and magnificent burgomaster! inasmuch as he 
 did right lustily carouse it with his friends about New- Year ; 
 roasting huge quantities of turkeys; baking innumerable 
 minced pies; and smacking the Ups of all fair ladies the 
 which he did meet, with such sturdy emphasis that the same 
 might have been heard the distance of a stone's throw." In 
 his days, according to my grandfather, were first invented 
 these notable cakes, hight new-year-cookies, which originally 
 were impressed on one side with the honest, burly counte- 
 nance of the Ulustrious Rip ; and on the other with that of the 
 noted St. Nicholas, vulgarly called Santaclaus; — of all the 
 saints in the kalendar the most venerated by true Hollanders, 
 and their unsophisticated descendants. These cakes are to this 
 time given on the first of January to aU visitors, together with 
 a glass of cherry-bounce, or raspberry-brandy. It is with 
 great regret, however, I observe that the simplicity of this 
 venerab^ usage has been much violated by modern pretend- 
 ers to style! and our respectable new-year-cookies, and 
 cherry-bounce, elbowed aside by plum-cake and outlandish 
 liqueurs, in the same way that our worthy old Dutch famiMes 
 are out-dazzled by modem upstarts, and mushroom cockneys. 
 In addition to this divine origin of new-year festivity ; there 
 is something exquisitely grateful, to a good-natured mind, in 
 seeing every face dressed in smiles; — in hearing the oft- 
 repeated salutations that flow spontaneously from the heart to 
 the Ups ;— in beholding the poor, for once, enjoying the smiles 
 of plenty, and forgetting the cares which press hard upon 
 them, in the jovial revelry of the feelings ;— the young children 
 decked out in their Sunday clothes and freed from their only 
 cares, the cares of the school, tripping through the streets on 
 errands of pleasure ; — and even the very negroes, those hohday- 
 loving rogues, gorgeously arrayed in cast-off finery, collected 
 in juntos, at comers, displaying their white teeth, and making 
 the welkin ring with bursts of laughter, — loud enough to crack 
 even the icy cheek of old winter. There is something so pleas- 
 ant in all this, that I confess it would give me real pain to 
 behold the frigid influence of modem style cheating us of this 
 jubilee of the heart ; and converting it, as it does every other 
 article of social intercourse, into an idle and unmeaning cere- 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 265 
 
 mony. 'Tis the annual festival of good-humour ; — it comes in 
 the dead of "winter, when nature is without a charm, when our 
 pleasures are contracted to the fireside, and when every thing 
 that unlocks the icy fetters of the heart, and sets the genial 
 current flowing, should he cherished, as a stray lamh found in 
 the wilderness ; or a flower bloomiag among thorns and briers. 
 
 Animated by these sentiments, it is with peculiar satisfaction 
 I perceived that the last New- Year was kept with more than 
 ordinary enthusiasm. It seemed as if the good old times had 
 rolled back again and brought with them all the honest, uncere- 
 monious intercourse of those golden days, when people were 
 more open and sincere, more moral, and more hospitable than 
 now ; — when every object carried about it a charm which the 
 hand of time has stolen away, or turned to a deformity ; when 
 the women were more simple, more domestic, more lovely, and 
 more true ; and when even the sun, hke a hearty old blade as 
 he is, shone with a genial lustre unknown in these degenerate 
 days: — ^in short, those fairy times, when I was a mad-cap boy, 
 crowding every enjoyment into the present moment ;*-makin^ 
 of the past an oblivion ; — of the future a heaven ; and oareleiSM 
 of all that was "over the hills and far away." Only one thing 
 was wanting to make every part of the celebration accord with 
 its ancient simplicity. The ladies, who — I write it with the 
 most piercing regret— are generally at the head of all domestic 
 innovations, most fastidiously refused that mark of good will, 
 that chaste and holy salute which was so fashionable in the 
 happy days of governor Rip and the patriarchs. Even the 
 Miss Cocklofts, who belong to a family that is the last intrench- 
 ment behind which the manners of the good old school have 
 retired, made violent opposition ; — and whenever a gentleman 
 entered the room, immediately put themselves in a posture of 
 defence ; — this Will Wizard, with his usual shrewdness, insists 
 was only to give the visitor a hint that they expected an 
 attack ; and declares, he has uniformly observed, that the re- 
 sistance of those ladies who make the greatest noise and bustle, 
 is most easily overcome. This sad innovation originated with 
 my good aunt Charity, who was as arrant a tabby as ever wore 
 whiskers; and I am not a little afiflicted to find that she has 
 found so many followers, even among the young and beautiful. 
 
 In compliance with an ancient and venerable custom, sanc- 
 tioned by time and our ancestors, and more especially by my 
 own inclinations, I wiU take this opportunity to salute my 
 readers with as many good wishes as I can possibly spare; for. 
 
366 SALWAGUmu)!. 
 
 in tnith, I have been so prodigal of late, that I have but few 
 remaining. I should have offered my congratulations sooner; 
 but, to be candid, having made the last new-year's campaign, 
 according to custom, under cousin Christopher, in which I 
 have seen some pretty hard service, my head has been some- 
 what out of order of late, and my intellects rather cloudy for 
 clear writing. Besides, I may allege as another reason, that I 
 have deferred my greetings untU this day, which is exactly 
 one year since we introduced ourselves to the public; and 
 surely periodical writers have the same right of dating from 
 the commencement of their works that monarchs have from 
 the time of their coronation ; or our most puissant repubUc 
 from the declaration of its independence. 
 
 These good wishes are warmed into more than usual benevo- 
 lence by the thought that I am now, perhaps, addressing my old 
 friends for the last time. That we should thus cut off our work in 
 the very vigour of its existence may excite some little matter of 
 wonder in this enUghtened conmiunity. — Now, though we could 
 give a variety of good reasons for so doing, yet it would be an 
 ill-natured act to deprive the public of such an admirable oppor- 
 tunity to indidge in their favourite amusement of conjecture: 
 so we generously leave them to flounder in the smooth ocean 
 of glorious uncertainty. Besides, we have ever considered it as 
 beneath persons of our dignity to account for our movements 
 or caprices ; — thank heaven, we are not like the unhappy rulers 
 of this enhghtened land, accountable to the mob for our actions, 
 or dependent on their smiles for support !— this much, how- 
 ever; we wiU say, it is not for want of subjects that we stop our 
 career. We are not in the situation of poor Alexander the 
 Great, who wept, as well indeed he might, because there were 
 no more worlds to conquer; for, to do justice to this queer, odd, 
 rantipole city and this whimsical country, there is matter 
 enough in. them to keep our risible muscles and our pens going 
 imtil doomsday. 
 
 Most people, in taking a farewell which may, perhaps, be 
 for ever, are anxious to part on good terms ; and it is usual, on 
 such melancholy occasions, for even enemies to shake hands, 
 forget their previous quarrels, and bury all former animosities 
 in parting regrets. Now, because most people do this, I am 
 determmed to act in quite a different way; for, as I have 
 Mved, so I should wish to die in my own way, without imita- 
 ting any person, whatever may be his rank, talents, or reputa- 
 tion. Besides, if I know our trio, we have no enmities to 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 267 
 
 obliterate, no hatchet to bury, and as to all injuries— those we 
 have long since forgiven. At this moment there is not an 
 individual in the world, -not even the Pope himself, to whom 
 ■we have any personal hostility. But if, shutting their eyes to 
 the many striking proofs of good-nature displayed through the 
 Whole course of this work, there should be any persons so 
 singularly ridiculous as to take offence at our strictures, we 
 heartily forgive their stupidity ; earnestly entreating them to 
 desist from all manifestations of Ul-humour, lest they should, 
 peradventure, be classed under some one of the denominations 
 of recreants we have felt it our duty to hold up to public ridi- 
 cule. Even at this moment we feel a glow of parting phUan- 
 throphy stealing upon us; — a sentiment of cordial good- will 
 towards the numerous host of readers that have jogged on at 
 our heels during the last year; and, in justice to ourselves, 
 must seriously protest, that if at any time we have treated 
 them a httle ungently, it was purely in that spirit of hearty 
 affection with which a schoolmaster driibs an unlucky urchin, 
 or a humane muleteer his recreant animal, at the very moment 
 when his heart is brim-full of loving-kindness. If this is not 
 considered an ample justification, so much the worse ; for in 
 that case I fear we shall remain for ever unjustified ; — a most 
 desperate extremity, and worthy of every man's commisera- 
 tion! 
 
 One circumstance in particular has tickled us mightily as we 
 jogged along, and that is the astonishing secrecy with which 
 W3 have been able to carry on our lucubrations ! Fully aware 
 of the profound sagacity of the pubhc of Gotham, and their 
 wonderful faculty of distinguishing a writer by his style, it is 
 with great self -congratulation we find that suspicion has never 
 pointed to us as the authors of Salmagundi. Our gray-beard 
 speculations have been most bountifully attributed to sundry 
 smart young gentlemen, who, for aught we know, have no 
 beards at aU; and we have often been highly amused, when 
 they were charged with the sin of writing what their harmless 
 minds never conceived, to see them affect all the blushing 
 modesty and beautiful embarrassment of detected virgin 
 authors. The profound and penetrating pubUc, having so 
 long been led away from truth and nattire by a constant 
 perusal of those delectable histories and romances from be- 
 yond seas, in which human nature is for the most part 
 wickedly mangled and debauched, have never once imagined 
 this work was a genuine and most authentic history ; that the 
 
268 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 Cocklofts were a real family, dwelling in the city; — spaying 
 scot and lot, entitled to the right of suffrage, and holding 
 several respectable ofl&ces in the corporation. — As little do they 
 suspect that there is a knot of merry old bachelors seated 
 snugly in the old-fashioned parlour of an old-fashioned Dutch 
 house, with a weathercock on the top that came from Holland, 
 who amuse themselves of an evening by laughing at their 
 neighbours in an honest way, and who manage to jog on 
 through the streets of our ancient and venerable city without 
 elbowing or being elbowed by a living soul. 
 
 When we first adopted the idea of discontinuing this work, 
 we determined, in order to give the critics a fair opportunity 
 for dissection, to declare ourselves, one and all, absolutely 
 def imct ; for, it is one of the rare and invaluable privileges of a 
 periodical writer, that by an act of innocent suicide he may 
 lawfully consign himself to the grave and cheat the world of 
 posthumous renown. But we abandoned this scheme for 
 many substantial reasons. In the first place, we care but 
 little for the opinion of critics, who we consider a kind of free- 
 booters in the repubhc of letters; who, Hke deer, goats, and 
 divers other graminivorous animals, gain subsistence by gorg- 
 ing upon the buds and leaves of the young shrubs of the forest, 
 thereby robbing them of their verdure and retarding their pro- 
 gress to maturity. It also occurred to us, that though an 
 author might lawfully in all countries kill himself outright, 
 yet this privilege did not extend to the raising himself from 
 the dead, if he was ever so anxious ; and aU that is left him in 
 such a case is to take the benefit of the metempsychosis act 
 and revive under a new name and form. 
 
 Far be it, therefore, from us to condemn ourselves to useless 
 embarrassments, shotdd we ever be disposed to resimae the 
 guai-dianship of this learned city of Gotham, and finish this 
 invaluable work, which is yet but half completed. We hereby 
 openly and seriously declare, that we are not dead, but intend, 
 if it pleases Providence, to Mve for many years to come ;^to 
 enjoy hfe with the genuine relish of honest souls ; careless of 
 riches, honours, and every thing but a good name, among 
 good fellows ; and with the fuU expectation of shuffling off the 
 remnant of existence, after the excellent fashion of that merry 
 Grecian who died laughing. 
 
8ALMAQUNDL 269 
 
 TO THE LADIES. 
 
 BY ANTHONY EVERGEEEN, GENT. 
 
 Nest to our being a knot of independent old bachelors, there 
 is nothing on which we pride ourselves more highly than upon 
 possessing that true chivalric spirit of gallantry, which dis- 
 tuiguished the days of king Arthiu-, and his valiant knights of 
 the Round-table. We cannot, therefore, leave the lists where 
 we have so long been tilting at folly, without giving a farewell 
 salutation to those noble dames and beauteous damsels who 
 have honoured lis with their presence at the tourney. Like 
 true knights, the only recompense we crave is the smile of 
 beauty, and the approbation of those gentle fair ones, whose 
 smile and whose approbation far excels all the trophies of 
 honour, and all the rewards of successful ambition. True it 
 is, that we have suffered infinite perils in standing forth as 
 their champions, from the sly attacks of sundry arch caitiffs, 
 who, in the overflowings of their malignity, have even accused 
 us of entering the lists as defenders of the very foibles and 
 faults of the sex. — ^Would that we could meet with these 
 recreants hand to hand ; — they should receive no more quarter 
 than giants and enchanters in romance. 
 
 Had we a spark of vanity in our natures, here is a glorious 
 occasion to show our sldll in refuting these illiberal insinua- 
 tions ; — ^but there is something manly, and ingenuous, in mak- 
 ing an honest confession of one's offences when about retiring 
 from the world ; — and so, without any more ado, we doff our 
 helmets and thus pubKcly plead guilty to the deadly sin of 
 GOOD natuee; hoping and expecting forgiveness from our 
 good-natured readers,— yet careless whether they bestow it 
 or not. And in this we do but imitate sundry condemned 
 criminals, who, finding themselves convicted of a capital 
 crime, with great openness and candour do generally in 
 their last dying speech make a confession of aU their pre- 
 vious offences, which confession is always read with great 
 delight by all true lovers of biography. 
 
 Still, however, notwithstanding our notorious devotion to 
 the gentle sex, and our indulgent partiality, we have endea- 
 
270 SALMA a UNDI. 
 
 voured, on divers occasions, with all the polite and becoming 
 deUcacy of true respect, to reclaim them from many of those 
 delusive foUies and unseemly peccadilloes in which they are 
 unhappily too prone to indulge. We have warned them 
 against the sad consequences of encoimtering our midnight 
 damps and withering wintry blasts ;— we have endeavoured, 
 with pious hand, to snatch them from the wildering mazes of 
 the waltz, and thus rescuing them from the arms of strangers, 
 to restore them to the bosoms of their friends; to preserve 
 them from the nakedness, the famine, the cobweb musUns, the 
 vinegar cruet, the corset, the stay-tape, the buckram, and all 
 the other miseries and racks of a fine figure. But, above all, 
 we have endeavoured to lure them from the mazes of a dissi- 
 pated world, where they wander about, careless of their value, 
 until they lose their original worth ; — and to restore them, be- 
 fore it is too late, to the sacred asylum of home, the soil most 
 congenial to the opening blossom of female loveliness ; where it 
 blooms and expands in safety, in the fostering sunshine of 
 maternal affection, and where its heavenly sweets are best 
 known and appreciated. 
 
 Modem philosophers may determine the proper destination 
 of the sex; — they may assign to them an extensive and brilliant 
 orbit, in which to revolve, to the delight of the million and the 
 confusion of man's superior intellect ; but when on this subject 
 we disclaim philosophy, and appeal to the higher tribunal of 
 the heart ; — and what heart that had not lost its better feelings, 
 would ever seek to repose its happiness on the bosom of one 
 whose pleasures all lay v/ithout the threshold of home;— who 
 snatched enjoyment only in the whirlpool of dissipation, and 
 amid the thoughtless and evanescent gayety of a ballroom. 
 The fair one who is for ever in the career of amusement, may 
 for a while dazzle, astonish, and entertain ; but we are content 
 with coldly admiring ; and fondly turn from glitter and noise, 
 to seek the happy fire-side of social life, there to confide our 
 dearest and best affections. 
 
 Yet some there are, and we delight to mention them, who 
 mingle freely with the world, unsullied by its contaminations ; 
 whose brilliant minds, Kke the stars of the firmament, are 
 destined to shed their light abroad and gladden every beholder 
 with their radiance ; — to withhold them from the world, would 
 be doing.it injustice; — ^they are inestimable gems, which were 
 never formed to be shut up in caskets ; but to be the pride and 
 ornament of elegant society. 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 371 
 
 We have endeavoTired always to discriminate between a 
 female of this superior order, and the thoughtless votary of 
 pleasure; who, destitute of intellectual resources, is servilely 
 dependent on others for every httle pittance of enjoyment; 
 who exhibits herself incessantly amid the noise, the giddy f roUc, 
 and capricious vanity of fashionable assemblages; dissipating 
 her languid affections on a crowd ; lavishing her ready smiles 
 with indiscriniinate prodigality on the worthy, or the undeserv- 
 ing ; and Mstening, with equal vacancy of mind, to the con- 
 versation of the enlightened, the frivolity of the coxcomb, and 
 the flourish of the fiddle-stick. 
 
 There is a certain artificial polish, a commonplace vivacity 
 acquired by perpetually mingling in the heau monde; wbich, 
 ia the commerce of the world, supphes the place of natural 
 suavity of good humour; but is purchased at the expense of all 
 original and sterling traits of character. By a kind of fashion- 
 able discipline, the eye is taught to brighten, the lip to smile, 
 and the whole countenance to irradiate with the semblance of 
 friendly welcome, while the bosom is unwarmed by a single 
 spark of genuine kindness or good-wiU. — This elegant simida- 
 tion rhay be admired by the connoisseur of human character, 
 as a perfection of art ; but the heart is not to be deceived by 
 the superficial illusion; it tm-ns with delight to the timid re- 
 tiring fair one, whose smile is the smile of nature; whose 
 blush is the soft suffusion of delicate sensibility ; and whose 
 affections, unbhghted by the chilling effects of dissipation, 
 glow with all the tenderness and purity of artless youth. 
 Hers is a singleness of mind, a native innocence of manners, 
 and a sweet timidity, that steal insensibly upon the heart, and 
 lead it a willing captive; though venturing occasionally among 
 the fairy haunts of pleasure, she shrinks from the broad glare 
 of notoriety, and seems to seek refuge among her friends, even 
 from the admiration of the world. 
 
 These observations bring to mind a Mttle allegory in one of 
 the manuscripts of the sage Mustapha; which, being in some 
 measure applicable to the subject of this essay, we transcribe 
 for the benefit of our fair readers. 
 
 Among the numerous race of the Bedouins, who people the 
 vast tracts of Arabia Deserta, is a small tribe, remarkable for 
 their habits of solitude and love of independence. They are of 
 a rambhno: disposition, roving from waste to waste, slaking 
 their thirst at sxich scanty pools as are found in those cheerless 
 plains, and glory in the unenvied Uberty they enjoy. A youth- 
 
272 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 ful Arab of this tribe, a simple son of nature, at length grow- 
 ing weary of his precarious and unsettled mode of life, deter- 
 mined to set out in search of some permanent abode. " I will 
 seek," said he, "some happy region, some generous chme, 
 where the dews of heaven diffuse fertility ; — I will find out 
 some unfaUing stream; and, forsaking the joyless life of my 
 forefathers, settle on its borders, dispose my mind to gentle 
 pleasures and tranquil enjoyments, and never wander more." 
 
 Enchanted with this picture of pastoral feUcity, he departed 
 from the tents of his companions; and having journeyed 
 during five days, on the sixth, as the sun was just rising in aU 
 the splendours of the east, he lifted up his eyes and beheld ex- 
 tended before him, in smiling luxuriance, the fertile regions of 
 Arabia the Happy. Gently swelling hiUs, tufted with bloom- 
 ing groves, swept down into luxuriant vales, enameled with 
 flowers of never- withering beauty. The sim, no longer darting 
 his rays with torrid fervour, beamed with a genial warmth 
 that gladdened and enriched the landscape. A pure and tem- 
 perate serenity, an air of voluptuous repose, a smile of con- 
 tented abundance, pervaded the face of nature; and every 
 zephyr breathed a thousand delicious odours. The soul of the 
 youthful wanderer expanded with delight ; — ^he raised his eyes 
 to heaven, and almost mingled with his tribute of gratitude a 
 sigh of regret that he had lingered so long amid the sterile 
 solitudes of the desert. 
 
 With fond impatience he hastened to make choice of a 
 stream where he might fix his habitation, and taste the pro- 
 mised sweets of this land of delight. But here commenced an 
 unforeseen perplexity; for, though he beheld innumerable 
 streams on every side, yet not one could he find which com- 
 pletely answered his high-raised expectations. One abounded 
 with wUd and picturesque beauty, but it was capricious and 
 unsteady in its course ; sometimes dashing its angry biUows 
 against the rocks, and often raging and overflowing its banks. 
 Another flowed smoothly along, without even a ripple or a 
 murmur ; but its bottom was soft and muddy, and its current 
 dull and sluggish. A third was pure and transparent, but its 
 waters were of a chilling coldness, and it had rocks and flints 
 in its bosom. A fourth was dulcet m its tinkhngs, and graceful 
 in its meanderings ; but it had a cloying sweetness that palled 
 upon the taste ; while a fifth possessed a sparkling vivacity, 
 and a pimgency of flavour, that deterred the wanderer from 
 repeating his draught. 
 
SALMAQUNni. 273 
 
 The youthful Bedouin began to weary with fruitless trials 
 and repeated disappointments, when his attention was sudden- 
 ly attracted by a hvely brook, whose dancing waves glittered 
 in the sunbeams, Eind whose prattling current communicated 
 an air of bewitching gayety to the surroimding landscape. 
 The heart of the wayworn traveller beat with expectation; but 
 on regarding it attentively in its course, he found that it con. 
 stantly avoided the embowering shade; loitering with equal 
 fondness, whether gliding through the rich valley, or over the 
 barren sand;— that the fragrant flower, the fruitful shrub, and 
 worthless bramble were alike fostered by its waves, and that 
 its current was often interrupted by unprofitable weeds. With 
 idle ambition, it expanded itself beyond its proper bounds, and 
 spread into a shallow waste of water, destitute of beauty or 
 utility, and babbling along with uninteresting vivacity and 
 vapid turbulence. 
 
 The wandering son of the desert turned away with a sigh of 
 regret, and pitied a stream which, if content within its natural 
 limits, might have been the pride of the valley, and the object 
 of all his wishes. Pensive, musiag, and disappointed, he 
 slowly pursued his now almost hopeless pilgrimage, and had 
 rambled for some time along the margin of a gentle rivulet, 
 before he became sensible of its beauties. It was a simple pas- 
 toral stream, which, shunning the noonday glare, pursued its 
 unobtrusive course through retired and tranquil vales ; — now 
 dimpKng among flowery banks and tufted shrubbery; now 
 winding among spicy groves, whose aromatic foliage fondly 
 bent down to meet the limpid wave. Sometimes, but not 
 often, it would venture from its covert to stray through a 
 flowery meadow ; but quickly, as if fearful of being seen, stole 
 back again into its more congenial shade, and there hngered 
 with sweet delay. Wherever it bent its course, the face of 
 nature brightened into smiles, and a perennial spring reigned 
 upon its borders. — The warblers of the woodland delighted to 
 quit their recesses and carol among its bowers : whUe the tur- 
 tle-dove, the timid fawn, the soft-eyed gazelle, and aU the 
 rural populace, who joy in the sequestered haunts of nature, 
 resorted to its vicinity.— Its pure, transparent waters rolled 
 over snow-white sands, and heaven itself was reflected in its 
 tranquil bosom. 
 
 The simple Arab threw himself upon its verdant margin;— he 
 tasted the silver tide, and it was hke nectar to his lips; — he 
 bounded with tj-ansport, for he had found the object of his 
 
274 8 ALMA O UNDL 
 
 wayfaring. "Here," cried he, "wiU I pitch my tent: — here 
 will I pass my days ; for pure, oh, fair stream, is thy gentle 
 current ; beauteous are thy borders ; and the grove must be a 
 paradise that is refreshed by thy meanderings 1" 
 
 Pendant opera interrupia, — Virg, 
 The work's all aback. — lAnk. Fid. 
 
 "How hard it is," exclaimed the divine Con-futs6, better 
 known among the ilUterate by the name of Confucius, "for a 
 man to bite off his own nose!" At this moment I, WiUiam 
 Wizard, Esq., feel the full force of this remark, and cannot but 
 give vent to my tribiilation at being obhged, through the whirn 
 of friend Langstaff, to stop shoi-t in my literary career, when 
 at the very point of astonishing my country, and reaping the 
 brightest laurels of literature. We daily hear of shipwrecks, 
 of failures and bankruptcies ; they are trifling mishaps which, 
 from their frequency, excite but httle astonishment or sym- 
 pathy ; but it is not often that we hear of a man's letting im- 
 mortality sMp through his fingers; and when he does meet 
 with such a misfortune, who would deny him the comfort of 
 bewailing his calamity? 
 
 Next to embargo, laid upon our commerce, the greatest 
 public annoyance is the embargo laid upon our work; in 
 consequence of which the produce of my wits, like that of my 
 country, must remain at home; and my ideas hke so many 
 merchantmen in port, or redoubtable frigates in the Potomac, 
 moulder away in the mud of my own brain. I know of few 
 things in thiS world more annoying than to be interrupted in 
 the middle of a favourite story, at the most interesting part, 
 where one expects to shine ; or to have a conversation broken 
 off just when you are about coming out with a score of excel- 
 lent jokes, not one of which but was good enoiigh to make 
 every fine figure in corsets spUt her sides with laughter. In 
 some such predicament am I placed at present ; and I do pro- 
 test to you, my good-looking and well-beloved readers, by the 
 chop-sticks of the immortal Josh, I was on the very brink of 
 treating you with a full broadside of the most ingenious and 
 instructive essays that your precious noddles were ever both- 
 ered -^-inth. 
 
SALMA UNDI. 375 
 
 In the first place, I had, with infinite labour and pains, and 
 by eonsultiag the divine Plato, Sanconiathon, ApoUoniiis, 
 Kiodius, Sir John Harrington, Noah Webster, Linkum Fidel- 
 ius, and others, fully refuted all those -wild theories respecting 
 the first settlement of our venerable coimtry ; and proved, be- 
 yond contradiction, that America, so far from, being, as the 
 ■writers of upstart Europe denominate it, the new world, is at 
 least as old as any country in existence, not excepting Egypt, 
 China, or even the land of the Assiniboins; which, according 
 to the traditions of that ancient people, has already assisted at 
 the funerals of thirteen suns and four hundred and seventy 
 'thousand moons 1 
 
 I had likewise written a long dissertation on certain hiero^ 
 glyphics discovered on these fragments of the moon, which 
 have lately fallen, with singular propriety, in a neighbouring 
 state; — and have thrown considerable Mght on the state of 
 literatm-e and the arts in that planet ; — showing that the uni- 
 versal language which prevails there is High Dutch ; thereby 
 proving it to be the most ancient and original tongue, and cor- 
 roborating the opinion of a celebrated poet, that it is the lan- 
 guage in which the serpent tempted our grandmother Eve. 
 
 To support the theatric department, I had several very 
 judicious critiques, ready written, wherein no quarter was 
 shown either to authors or actors ; and I was only waiting to 
 determine at what plays or performances they should be 
 levelled. As to the grand spectacle of Cinderella, which is to 
 be represented this season, I had given it a most unmerciful 
 handling: showing that it was neither tragedy, comedy, nor 
 farce; that the incidents were highly improbable, that the 
 prince played like a perfect harlequin, that the white mice 
 were merely powdered for the occasion, and that the new moon 
 had a most outrageous copper nose. 
 
 But my most profound and erudite essay in embryo is an 
 analytical, hypercritical review of these Salmagundi lucubra- 
 tions; which I had written partly in revenge for the many 
 waggish jokes played off against me by my confederates, and 
 partly for the purpose of saving much invaluable labour to the 
 ZoUuses and Dennises of the age, by detecting and exposing all 
 the similarities, resemblances, synonymies, analogies, coinci- 
 dences, &c., which occur in this work. 
 
 I hold it downright plagiarism for any author to write, or 
 even to think, in the same manner with any other writer that 
 either did, doth, or may exist. It is a sage maxim of law — 
 
276 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 " Ignorantia neminem excMsai "— and the same has been ex> 
 tended to literature : so that if an author shall publish an idea 
 that has been ever hinted by another, it shall be no exculpation 
 for him to plead ignorance of the fact. All, therefore, that I 
 had to do was to take a good pair of spectacles, or a magnify- 
 ing glass, and with Salmagundi in hand, and a table fuU of 
 books before me, to muse over them alternately, in a corner 
 of Cockloft library: carefully comparing and contrasting all 
 odd ends and fragments of sentences. Little did honest 
 Launce suspect, when he sat lounging and scribbling in his 
 elbow-chair, with no other stock to draw upon than his own 
 brain, and no other authority to consult than the sage Linkum 
 Fidelius ! — little did he think that his careless, unstudied effu- 
 sions would receive such scrupulous investigation. 
 
 By laborious researches, and patiently collating words, 
 where sentences and ideas did not correspond, I have detected 
 sundry sly disguises and metamorphoses of which, I'll be 
 bound, LangstafE himself is ignorant. Thus, for instance— 
 The httle man in black is evidently no less a personage than 
 old Gpody Blake, or goody something, filched from the Spec- 
 tator, who confessedly filched her from Otway's ' ' wrinkled 
 hag with age grown double." My friend Launce has taken the 
 honest old woman, dressed her up in the cast-off suit worn by 
 Twaits, in Lampedo, and endeavoured to palm the imposture 
 upon the enUghtened inhabitants of Gotham. No further 
 proof of the fact need be given, than that Goody Blake was 
 taken for a witch; and the little man in black for a conjuror; 
 and that they both lived in villages, the inhabitants of which 
 were distinguished by a most respectful abhorrence of hobgob- 
 hns and broomsticks ;— to be sure the astonishing similarity 
 ends here, but surely that is enough to prove that the little 
 man in black is no other than Goody Blake i_L the disguise of a 
 white witch. 
 
 Thus, also, the sage Mustapha in mistaking a brag party for 
 a convention of magi studying hieroglyphics, may pretend to 
 originality of idea, and to a famihar acquaintance with the 
 black-letter literati of the east ; — but this Tripohtan trick will 
 not pass here ;— I refer those who wish to detect this larceny to 
 one of those wholesale jumbles or hodge podge collections of 
 science, which, like a tailor's pandemonium, or a giblet-pie, 
 are receptacles for scientific fragments of all sorts and sizes. — 
 The reader, learned in dictionary studies, will at once perceive 
 I mean an encyclopaedia. There, under the title of magi, 
 
SALMAGUNDI. 277 
 
 Egypt, cards, or hieroglyphics, I forget which, will be dis- 
 covered an idea similar to that of Mustapha, as snugly con- 
 cealed as truth at the bottom of a well, or the mistletoe amid 
 the shady branches of an oak: and it may at any time be 
 drawn from its lurking place, by those hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water, who labour in humbler walks of criticism. 
 This is assuredly a most unpardonable error of the sage Mus- 
 tapha, who had been the captain of a ketch, and, of course, as 
 your nautical men are for the most part very learned, ought to 
 have known better. — But this is not the only blunder of the 
 grave Mussulman, who swears by the head of Amrou, the 
 beard of Barbarossa, and the sword of Khalid, as glibly as 
 our good Christian soldiers anathematize body and soul, or a 
 sailor his eyes and odd hmbs. Now I solemnly pledge myself 
 to the world, that in all my travels through the east, in Persia, 
 Arabia, China, and Egypt, I never heard man, woman, or child 
 utter any of those preposterous and new-fangled assevera- 
 tions; and that, so far from swearing by any man's head, it is 
 considered, throughout the east, the greatest insult thcit can 
 be offered to either the living or dead to meddle in any shape 
 even with his beard. These are but two or three specimens of 
 the exposures I would have made ; but I should have descended 
 stiU lower; nor would have spared the most insignificant; 
 and, or but, or nevertheless, provided I could have found a 
 ditto in the Spectator or the dictionary ; — but aU these minutiae 
 I bequeath to the Lilliputian literati of this sagacious com- 
 munity, who are fond of hunting "such small deer," and I 
 earnestly pray they may find full employment for a twelve- 
 month to come. 
 
 But the most outrageous plagiarisms of friend Launcelot are 
 those made on sundry living personages. Thus: Tom Strad- 
 dle has been evidently stolen from a distiaguished Brum- 
 magem emigrant, since they both ride oh horseback ;— Dabble, 
 the httle great man, has his origin in a certain aspiring coun- 
 sellor, who is rising in the world as rapidly as the heaviness of t 
 his head wUl permit; mine uncle John wiU bear a tolerable 
 comparison, particularly as it respects the sterling qualities 
 of his heart, with a worthy yeoman of Westchester county ;— 
 and to deck out Aunt Charity, and the amiable Miss Cocklofts, 
 he has rifled the charms of half the ancient vestals in this city. 
 Nay, he has taken unpardonable Mberties with my own person 1 
 —elevating me on the substantial pedestals of a worthy gen- 
 tleman from China, and tricking me out with claret coats, 
 
278 SALMAGUNDI. 
 
 tight breeches, and silver-sprigged dickeys, in such sort that 1 
 can scarcely recognize my own resemblance ; — whereas I abso- 
 lutely declare that I am an exceeding good-looking man, 
 neither too tall nor too short, too old nor too young, with a per- 
 son indifferently robust, a head rather inclining to be large, an 
 easy swing in my walk ; and that I wear my own hair, neither 
 queued, nor cropped, nor turned up, but in a fair, pendulous 
 oscillating club, tied with a yard of nine-penny black riband. 
 
 And now, having said aU that occurs to me on the present 
 pathetic occasion, — having made my speech, wrote my eulogy, 
 and drawn my portrait, I bid my r-eaders an affectionate fare- 
 well; exhorting them to live honestly and soberly; — paying 
 their taxes, and reverencing the state, the church, and the cor- 
 poration; — reading diligently the Bible and the almanac, the 
 newspaper, and Salmagundi; — which is all the reading an 
 honest citizen has occasion for;— and eschewing all spirit of 
 faction, discontent, irreligion, and criticism. 
 "Wtuch is all at present, 
 
 Erom their departed friend, 
 
 William Wizard, 
 
 THE END. 
 
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