SALMAGUNDI.
PEOPLE’S EDITION.
[Illustration: SUMMER-HOUSE. Cockloft Hall.]
SALMAGUNDI;
OR, THE
WHIMWHAMS AND OPINIONS OF LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ., AND OTHERS.
WILLIAM IRVING, JAMES KIRKE PAULDING
AND
WASHINGTON IRVING.
In hoc est hoax, cum quiz et jokesez,
Et smokem, toastem, roastem folksez,
Fee, faw, fum. _Psalmanazar._
With baked and boiled, and stewed and toasted,
And fried and broiled, and smoked and roasted,
We treat the town.
PRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES BY EVERT A.
DUYCKINCK.
NEW YORK:
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS,
FOURTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
THE EXECUTORS OF
J. K. PAULDING AND WASHINGTON IRVING,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Southern District of New York.
[Illustration]
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
The present reprint of the following papers has grown out of the
repeated demand, of late years, for an edition of SALMAGUNDI, worthy to
accompany the collected volumes of the writings of the distinguished
authors. The book would probably have been included by Mr. Irving in the
revised edition of his works, had it been wholly his own. It was
published some time ago, in the series of the writings of his friend and
relative, the joint author of the essays, Mr. Paulding, and though it
had been long out of print in that form, Mr. Irving did not seem
disposed to break the association. He was accustomed, indeed, to speak
of it as a light, trivial publication, the sport of his boyish days; and
he certainly showed no eagerness in reviving it; but we cannot suppose
him insensible to the many excellences which the work undoubtedly
possesses—charms of manner and of thought springing from the fresh
joyous period of youth, and lending their grace to the brightest pages
of his matured labors. SALMAGUNDI is the literary parent, not only of
the “Sketch Book” and the “Alhambra,” but of all the intermediate and
subsequent productions of Irving, even of some slight ornaments of the
graver offspring of the “Columbus” and “Washington.” There is, for
instance, in one of the later numbers, a chapter of “The Chronicles of
the renowned and Ancient City of Gotham,” which anticipates the humor of
Knickerbocker; there are traits of tenderness and pathos suggestive of
the plaintive sentiment of the “Sketch Book;” and the kindly humors of
the Cockloft mansion are an American “Bracebridge Hall.”
The book in fact, is every way in place in company with the series of
Mr. Irving’s writings. It was not all of his composition, to be sure,
nor did it receive that care of revision at his hands, bestowed upon his
other compositions in his latest editions; but, without separating his
part from the rest, and making every allowance for inexperience of
style, we may readily enough detect throughout its pages the genius of
Washington Irving.
Leaving the particular elucidation of the special authorship of the
various articles to his literary executor and biographer, if he shall
think proper in his forthcoming work to make such an investigation and
disclosure, we may here generally state, for the information of the
reader, that SALMAGUNDI was the joint production of William Irving,
James Kirke Paulding, and Washington Irving. It is well known that the
humorous and sentimental poetry of the work was wholly written by
William Irving, who was at the time a merchant of New York, and some
seventeen years older than his brother Washington. The genial and
inventive faculties of William Irving were of a high order. Besides the
poetry of SALMAGUNDI, the work is indebted to him for occasional hints
and sketches worked up by his brother, among which may be mentioned the
amusing picture of the civic militia exercises in the letter of
Mustapha, in the fifth number, and the equally humorous sketch, of more
serious import, of the political “slang-whangers” in the fourteenth.
William Irving married the sister of James Kirke Paulding, who came from
his home in Westchester County, to New York, for the first time, on a
visit to his new relative. He found the house of his brother-in-law in
the city the genial resort of a knot of wits and humorists who graced
the Calliopean Society, a literary institution of those days. An
intimacy with Washington Irving sprang up, of which in due time came the
joint authorship of SALMAGUNDI, which was thus a species of family
party. A considerable portion of the book was written by Paulding. We
may, perhaps, trace his pen in the oriental papers, a form of writing
for which he retained a liking, and which he practiced with great spirit
and elegance to the last. Many of the exquisite passages of description
of nature were undoubtedly written by him. “Mine Uncle John,” a mellow,
fine toned portrait, was his work, and he had a hand in “Autumnal
Reflections,” one of the most refined sentimental papers of the volume.
It is, perhaps, a common misapprehension of this eminent writer, that
his pen was wanting in geniality, and that he took rather a splenetic
view of life. This notion has probably arisen from the admission of a
controversial element into his productions where, perhaps, it might have
been better shut out; but certainly, with this exception, no American
writer has spread upon his page more feeling observation, more friendly
truths, more genial sympathies. His favorite method of the apologue
affords a kindly proof of this, which is not to be mistaken by those
skilled in literary physiognomy.
Some ten years or more after the conclusion of SALMAGUNDI, Paulding
ventured alone upon a second series. Washington Irving was in Europe,
and the muse of Pindar Cockloft was silent. It was a dangerous
undertaking, for the very essence of a Salmagundi is the combination of
divers ingredients—a product of many minds. The new work proved a little
too uniform and didactic in parts. Geoffrey Crayon could have pruned and
heightened it here and there. Yet it contains many delightful pages.
There is, among other things, a charming account of a further visit to
the old Cockloft Hall, inviting as the old. One passage in it—the death
of old Cæsar—has a genuine touch of pathos. The cherry-tree had fallen
which he had assisted his master to plant sixty years before, and the
poor negro “seemed smitten with the same blast that leveled it. It was
curious,” concludes the little narrative, “to see how the errors of his
early impressions—for he was sixteen years old when brought from
Africa—had mixed up with the simple ideas implanted subsequently,
respecting the Christian religion. His kind mistresses ministered to the
wants of his soul, as well as the infirmities of his body, and
endeavored to make him comprehend the mysteries of our faith. But they
were beyond his reach. He feared, he said, ‘the Lord would not know
him’—meaning that, lowly as he was, it might escape the Divinity that
such a being had ever existed. His decay was gradual, but the state of
his mind was singularly compounded of the mistakes of ignorance and the
ramblings of lightheadedness, as it is called. The day before he died I
was in to see him. ‘Massa Launcelot,’ said he, ‘think old negro like me
ever go to heaven?’ ‘I warrant you, old Cæsar,’ replied I. He seemed
comforted with the assurance, but still a doubt hung on his mind—‘What
will old negro like me do there?’—Then his eye seemed glad for a moment,
and his last words were—‘Never mind—I can wait upon the angels.’”
While we write, the remains of this author, at the venerable age of
eighty-two, are being borne to the tomb. It is due to his memory, and to
his generous participation in the literature of the day, to express the
opinion that when the productions of Paulding, now for some time hidden
from the world, shall be revived, the public will again find in them, a
freshness and interest, a spirit and humor, unabated since their first
appearance. To the inhabitants of New York in particular, they will
present strong claims to attention, for the author, though he turned his
back upon the city, was a genuine son of Manhattan.
Of the third writer, Washington Irving, it is not necessary here to
speak, nor have we occasion, as we have said, further to point out his
share in the work. The many graces and excellences of his style are too
well known for the reader to need a guide to find them out. He will meet
everywhere in these pages the first sprightly efforts of invention, the
playful humor, the sportive fancy, the tender sentiment which
constituted in youth as in age—Washington Irving.
A word should be said of the publisher of the work, David Longworth, a
gentleman as much given to whimwhams as any of the race so pleasantly
satirized in the little yellow-covered numbers which he sent forth
fortnightly to the public. He was the theatrical publisher of the day,
in the neighborhood of the old Park Theatre, then a new building,
holding his place of business on the spot now sacred so the good cheer
of Windust. Here he displayed, on the outer wall, a huge painting of the
crowning of Shakespeare; while within, a distinction for those times in
the infant state of the arts, his shop boasted as its attraction a
series of the prints of Alderman Boydell’s recently published
Shakespeare Gallery. He had been a printer, and had ingrafted on his
occupation a taste for elegance in typography, engraving, and binding.
His beautiful “Telemachus” and other publications, would, in our day, be
simply accounted neat; but in his time they made a sensation, very much
as luxuries of furniture and living, now enjoyed by everybody, were then
considered somewhat aristocratic, and reserved only for undoubted
affluence. But Longworth had a special whim for elegance. He called his
shop, by a fine effort of the imagination, “The Sentimental Epicure’s
Ordinary;” and as a proof of his judgment, trifled with the English
language. In the original edition of some of his books, proper names are
spelt with small initial letters. Oddly enough, the man who was so
grandiloquent himself would not allow New York its appropriate capitals.
It must be written new-york, and portly philadelphia must dwindle in
lower-case. The wags of SALMAGUNDI, while they were laughing at the
town, must sometimes have been tempted to place a full length of their
humorist publisher on his pages.
SALMAGUNDI was quite a success on its first appearance. It did not make
a fortune for its authors. That was hardly to be expected of so modest a
little pamphlet; but it created its impression. Slight as it was in
form, and apparently written off so carelessly, it was really the most
formidable incursion which had yet been made in America into the realm
of taste in this species of literature. Franklin had written a half
dozen agreeable essays for a newspaper, and addressed a few
complimentary apologues to the French ladies. Francis Hopkinson was
really an elegant author, who, like Belknap in the Foresters, had turned
the graces of his pen to the decoration of politics; Dennie wrote some
ingenious lay sermons, and was steeped in rhetorical refinements: but
none of these were read by the fair. We do not, indeed, recall a single
book written in America worthy of Belinda’s toilet-table before
SALMAGUNDI.
As for the success out of doors, it must have been a cheerful thing to
witness. Dr. Francis, the genial reminiscent, tells us:—
“Ere half a dozen numbers of SALMAGUNDI were issued, quite a commotion
arose among the literati and the public concerning the work and its
authors. The humble drudges about town, who had lived obscurely, yet
fancied themselves members of the literary world by their revision of
Dilworth; and the editors of catechisms with explanatory notes, were
astounded at that greater eclat which elegant letters secured, and which
was denied to their uninventive products; while fashionable coteries
everywhere were prodigal of conjectures from what mine the gold dust was
brought to light for the commonwealth of letters. SALMAGUNDI was found
at almost every tea-table. The sale announced the fact that literary
property was both vendible and profitable.”
The “characters” sketched in these pleasant papers were doubtless drawn
more or less from the life, and included most of the notabilities of the
town, with occasionally a glance beyond it. There are said to be some
touches of Dennie, the essayist and critic of Philadelphia, in Launcelot
Langstaff. A whole bevy of beaux and belles saw themselves reflected in
the Ding Dongs and Sophy Sparkles. The base metal of Brummagem
adventurers and spendthrifts was nailed to the counter by the satire of
Straddle: theatrical critics were silenced by a glance at themselves in
the mirror of ’Sbidlikens; fashionable upstarts shrank from the
portraits of the Giblets; the small-beer of the politician soured at the
thundering satire of Dabble; the feathers of the carpet soldiers wilted
when they were paraded in the regiment of the Fag-rags. SALMAGUNDI was
the mild terror of the town when society was not too overgrown an
instrument to be played upon by a cunning musician.
New York was a queer place then, as our own New York may be, doubtless,
to our descendants fifty years hence, if they have a pair of Salmagundi
spectacles to see it with. There were all sorts of humors afloat, small
and great, from fashionable nothings, with their idle brains, to the
heads of great projectors teeming with national wonders. We see
something of all in the book. There is that North River Society which
figures on so many pages. Were the wits conscious how much of the future
these humorous projectors, the Stevenses, the Livingstons, and Fultons,
held in as yet uncrystalized solution in their vagaries? Mr. Ichabod
Fungus laughs at that “aquatic mole or water rat,” the “Torpedo,” with
which the great inventor entertained the town at the Battery, but we
hear nothing of his waggery when the Clermont ascends the Hudson. It was
the heyday, too, of the Jeffersonian era, and the reader may get a very
good idea of the feelings entertained towards the sage of Monticello, in
respect to his “economical” administration of embargos and gun-boats.
How distant it all seems—far removed as the days of the “Spectator”
itself, the parent of this fluttering progeny of humors and
anticipations of the gentle essayists. There is nothing of New York of
the present time in its pages—of our bustling, driving, busy era. The
town seems then to have had an hour or two for a little tea-table chat.
The demon of ceaseless work had not then taken such full possession of
the world. There was something to laugh over, and sorrow had leisure for
a tear. There were actors then; people went to the theatre, and talked
over the performance when they came away. Where is the great George
Frederick now, and the gentle accents of Cooper? The poor wizened
Frenchmen, exiles of Europe and Saint Domingo, whose quaint habits so
perplexed My Aunt Charity, where are they? Vanished from earth, but not
before their fadeless images were stamped within the leaves of this
book.
Well, all have gone, writers and actors. The garments of the beaux would
startle us like ghosts if we were to look into the old wardrobes; the
beauty of the belles has withered into ashes; good and evil undreamt of
have come out of the inventors and politicians; a new generation swarms
with a new set of follies, and we write the eulogies and epitaphs of the
departed humorists. So runs the world away, will be the reflection of
the reader as he lays down these sprightly pages, redolent of youth and
vivacity, of the spring-time of life, when satire itself has no
bitterness, though it may affect scornful words and frowning emphasis,
when hope spreads its gayest hues of promise, and melancholy itself has
its tinct of eloquence and pleasure.
* * * * *
The text of this edition is that of the original work as it was first
published by Longworth. In the subsequent reprints, several papers of
interest were dropped, which are now restored. A few verbal corrections
have been made, following the Paris edition of Irving’s works of 1834,
which had more or less of the author’s supervision. The notes to that
copy, so far as they extended, have been retained, and will be found to
be appropriately credited.
The interesting sketch of the Summer-house of Cockloft Hall, which
appears as the frontispiece, is a contribution to the volume from Mr. W.
A. Whitehead, of Newark.
NEW YORK, _April 7, 1860_.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
NO. PAGE
I.— SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1807 1
PUBLISHER’S NOTICE. SHAKESPEARE GALLERY, NEW YORK 4
FROM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 5
THEATRICS—CONTAINING THE QUINTESSENCE OF MODERN CRITICISM.
BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 14
NEW YORK ASSEMBLY. BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 17
II.— WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1807. FROM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF
LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 24
MR. WILSON’S CONCERT. BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 31
COCKLOFT FAMILY 34
TO LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 39
ADVERTISEMENT 43
III.— FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 46
LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, CAPTAIN OF A
KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS
HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI 49
FASHIONS. BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 55
INCOG 58
PROCLAMATION, FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 62
DR. CHRISTOPHER COSTIVE 66
IV.— TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 71
MEMORANDUMS FOR A TOUR TO BE ENTITLED “THE STRANGER IN NEW
JERSEY; OR, COCKNEY TRAVELLING.” BY JEREMY COCKLOFT, THE
YOUNGER 75
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 84
FLUMMERY. FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.; BEING A
POEM WITH NOTES, OR RATHER NOTES WITH A POEM; IN THE
MANNER OF DR. CHRISTOPHER COSTIVE 86
V.— SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 99
LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, TO ABDALLAH EB’N
AL RAHAB, SURNAMED THE SNORER, MILITARY SENTINEL AT THE
GATE OF HIS HIGHNESS’ PALACE 99
BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 111
TO THE LADIES. FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 118
VI.— FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 123
THEATRICS. BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 136
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 146
FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. NOTES BY WILLIAM
WIZARD, ESQ. 157
VIII.— SATURDAY, APRIL 18,1807. BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 164
ON STYLE. BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 173
TO CORRESPONDENTS 182
IX.— SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 187
LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, CAPTAIN OF A
KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS
HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI 197
FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 206
X.— SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 212
TO LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 214
THE STRANGER IN PENNSYLVANIA. BY JEREMY COCKLOFT, THE
YOUNGER 221
XI.— TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1807. LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-BUB KELI
KHAN, CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL
SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI 232
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. MINE UNCLE JOHN 244
XII.— SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 254
THE STRANGER AT HOME; OR, A TOUR IN BROADWAY. BY JEREMY
COCKLOFT, THE YOUNGER 265
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 275
FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ. 276
XIII.— FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 281
PLANS FOR DEFENDING OUR HARBOR. BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 285
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. A RETROSPECT; OR, “WHAT YOU WILL” 295
TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS 308
XIV.— SATURDAY, SEPT. 16, 1807. LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB
KELI KHAN, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO
HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI 310
COCKLOFT HALL. BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 322
THEATRICAL INTELLIGENCE. BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. 335
XV.— THURSDAY, OCT. 1, 1807. SKETCHES FROM NATURE. BY ANTHONY
EVERGREEN, GENT. 340
ON GREATNESS. BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 349
XVI.— THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1807. STYLE AT BALLSTON. BY WILLIAM
WIZARD, ESQ. 360
LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, TO ASEM HACCHEM,
PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF
TRIPOLI 368
XVII.— WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11, 1807. AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS. BY
LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 380
BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 386
CHAP. CIX.—OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE RENOWNED AND ANTIENT
CITY OF GOTHAM 392
XVIII.— TUESDAY, NOV. 24, 1807. THE LITTLE MAN IN BLACK. BY
LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. 401
LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, TO ASEM HACCHEM,
PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF
TRIPOLI 411
XIX.— THURSDAY, DEC. 31, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 420
LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, TO MULEY HELIM
AL RAGGI, SURNAMED THE AGREEABLE RAGAMUFFIN, CHIEF
MOUNTEBANK AND BUFFA-DANCER TO HIS HIGHNESS 422
BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 434
TEA: A POEM 441
XX.— MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 1808. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR 448
TO THE LADIES. BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT. 458
FAREWELL 468
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SALMAGUNDI.
NO. I.—SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1807.
As everybody knows, or ought to know, what a SALMAGUND is, we shall
spare ourselves the trouble of an explanation; besides, we despise
trouble as we do everything low and mean, and hold the man who would
incur it unnecessarily as an object worthy our highest pity and
contempt. Neither will we puzzle our heads to give an account of
ourselves, for two reasons; first, because it is nobody’s business;
secondly, because if it were, we do not hold ourselves bound to attend
to anybody’s business but our own; and even _that_ we take the liberty
of neglecting when it suits 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 this reason we candidly avow, would not
hold good with ourselves.
There are, however, two or three pieces of information which we bestow
gratis on the public, 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. We intend for this purpose to present a
striking picture of the town; and as everybody is anxious to see his own
phiz on canvas, however stupid or ugly it may be, we have no doubt but
the whole town will flock to our exhibition. Our picture will
necessarily include a vast variety of figures; and should any gentleman
or lady be displeased with the inveterate truth of their likenesses,
they may ease their spleen by laughing at those of their neighbors—this
being what _we_ understand by _poetical justice_.
Like all true and able editors, we consider ourselves infallible; and
therefore, with the customary diffidence of our brethren of the quill,
we shall take the liberty of interfering in all matters either of a
public or a 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 public 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, therefore, 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 all 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 neighbor, “Town,”[1] 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 grandfather’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 folios, _Linkum Fidelius_.
PUBLISHER’S NOTICE.
SHAKESPEARE GALLERY, NEW YORK.[2]
This work will be published and sold by D. Longworth. It will be printed
on hot-pressed vellum paper, as that is held in highest estimation for
buckling up young ladies’ hair—a purpose to which similar works are
usually appropriated; it will be a small, neat, duodecimo size, so that,
when enough numbers are 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 will be published. The price will depend on
the size of the number, and must be paid on delivery. The publisher
professes the same sublime contempt for money as his authors. The
liberal patronage bestowed by his discerning fellow-citizens on various
works of taste which he has published, has left him no _inclination_ to
ask for further favors at their hands, and he publishes this work in the
mere hope of requiting their bounty.[3]
FROM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.
We were a considerable time in deciding whether we should be at the
pains of introducing ourselves to the public. 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.
Willing, 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 exertion of charitable condescension to furnish them with a
slight clew to the truth.
Before we proceed further, however, we advise everybody, 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, for, in common with all
philosophical wiseacres, from Solomon downward, 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 purchased, we give
fair warning—we shall burn all our essays, critiques, and epigrams, in
one promiscuous blaze; and, like the books of the sibyls and the
Alexandrian Library, they will be lost forever to posterity. For the
sake, therefore, of our publisher, 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 neighbors, 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 public 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
ourselves; 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 public, so much
the better for the public; but we frankly acknowledge that so soon as we
get tired of reading 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 will 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, jolly dame, who
sits in her arm-chair, laughs right merrily at the farce of life—and
takes the world as it goes.
We intend particularly to notice the conduct of the fashionable world;
nor in this shall we be governed by that carping spirit with which
narrow-minded book-worm cynics squint at the little extravagances of the
ton; but with that liberal toleration which actuates every man of
fashion. While we keep more than a Cerberus watch over the guardian
rules of female delicacy and decorum, we shall not discourage any little
sprightliness of demeanor, or innocent vivacity of character. Before we
advance one line further, we must let it be understood, as our firm
opinion, void of all prejudice or partiality, 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 four elements; and that
they only want to be cured of certain whims, eccentricities, and
unseemly conceits, by our superintending cares, to render them
absolutely perfect. They will, therefore, receive a large portion of
those attentions directed to the fashionable world; nor will the
gentlemen 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 stupid
it was at Mrs. ——’s party.”
This department will be under the peculiar direction and control of
ANTHONY EVERGREEN, gent., to whom all communications on this subject are
to be addressed. This gentleman, from his long experience in the routine
of balls, tea-parties, and assemblies, 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 while he remains unchangeably the same. He can
recount the amours and courtships of the fathers, mothers, uncles, and
aunts, and even the grandames, 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 mean 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 Kissing-bridge.[4] He
likewise 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[5] was
quite out of town. Though he has slowly and gradually given in to modern
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 commendation 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 cotillon is superior to a minuet, or an unadorned
crop to a pig-tail and powder. Custom and fashion have, however, had
more effect on him than all our lectures; and he tempers, so happily,
the grave and ceremonious gallantry 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 favorite with our readers—if not, the
worse for themselves, as they will have to endure his company.
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 willingly ceded to him all discretionary powers in this respect.
Though Will has not had the advantage of an education at Oxford or
Cambridge, or even at Edinburgh or Aberdeen, and though he is but little
versed in Hebrew, yet we have no doubt he will be found fully competent
to the undertaking. He has improved his taste by a long residence
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
mandarin dresses, and porcelain, and particularly values himself on his
intimate knowledge of the buffalo, and war dances of the northern
Indians. He is likewise promised the assistance of a gentleman, lately
from London, who was born and bred in that centre of science and _bon
goût_, the vicinity of Fleet Market, where he has been edified, man and
boy, these six-and-twenty years, with the harmonious jingle of Bowbells.
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 emphasizes
“_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 shall all hear of it in good time. We have,
however, advised Will Wizard to keep his friend in check, lest, by
opening the eyes of the public to the wretchedness of the actors by whom
they 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 woe be unto him who injures a hair of their heads. As we
have no design against the patience of our fellow-citizens, 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 attempt to show off
_new readings_, make the sweet swan of Avon cackle like 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 will be the first to cry out, a hit! a hit! and we doubt not we shall
frequently lay ourselves open to the weapons of our assailants. But let
them have a care how they run a tilting with us; they have to deal with
stubborn foes, who can bear a world of pummelling; we will be relentless
in our vengeance, and will fight “till from our bones the flesh be
hack’t.”
What other subjects we shall include in the range of our observations,
we have not determined, or rather we shall not trouble ourselves to
detail. The public have already more information concerning us, than we
intended to impart. We owe them no favors, 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 will be taught the true line of propriety, and the most
advisable method of managing their beaux. We advise 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 will be published whenever we
have sufficient matter to constitute a number, and the size of the
number shall depend on the stock in hand. This will best suit our
negligent habits, and leave us that full liberty and independence which
is the joy and pride of our souls. As we have before hinted, that we do
not concern ourselves about the pecuniary matters of our paper, we leave
its price to be regulated by our publisher: only recommending him, for
his own interest, and the honor of its 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 salutation of “past three
o’clock,” before we 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 fulfill 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.
THEATRICS—CONTAINING THE QUINTESSENCE OF 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 well 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 wearing his jacket open,
that he might play the Scotch fiddle more conveniently—that being a
hereditary accomplishment in the Glamis family.
We have seen this character performed in China, by the celebrated
_Chow-Chow_, the Roscius 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 opinion of the sage Linkum Fidelius,
performed Macbeth in wooden shoes; this gave him an opportunity of
producing great 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 marvelously
delighted, flourished their hands, and stroked their whiskers three
times, and the matter was carefully recorded in the next number of a
paper called the _Flim-Flam_ (_English_, “Town”).
We were much pleased with Mrs. Villiers in Lady Macbeth; 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 neighbor “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. Villiers 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 “little
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 likewise to be a lady of some
nerve, I dare engage she will read a letter about witches vanishing in
air, and such _common occurrences_, without being unnaturally surprised,
to the annoyance of honest “Town.”
We are happy to observe that Mr. Cooper profits by the instructions of
friend “Town,” and does not dip the daggers in 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 _sorry 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 aërial 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 neighbor “Town,”
yet we heartily agree with him in censuring Mr. Cooper for omitting that
passage so remarkable for “beauty of imagery,” etc., beginning with “and
pity like a naked new-born babe,” etc. It is one of those passages of
Shakespeare 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 profess 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 first 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 all the money in our pockets, see “Town” flourishing
his critical quill under the auspices of an ass’s head, like the great
Franklin in his _Montero Cap_.
NEW YORK ASSEMBLY.
BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.
The assemblies this year have gained a great accession of beauty.
Several brilliant stars have risen 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
honor 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 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 humors of a lady by her prevailing colors; for the “rival
queens” of fashion, Mrs. Toole and Madame Bouchard,[6] appeared to have
exhausted their wonderful inventions in the different disposition,
variation, and combination of tints and shades. The philosopher who
maintained that black was white, and that, of course, there was no such
color as white, might have given some color to his theory on this
occasion, by the absence of poor forsaken white muslin. I was, however,
much pleased to see that red maintained its ground against all other
colors, because red is the color of Mr. Jefferson’s *******, Tom Paine’s
nose, and my slippers.[7]
Let the grumbling smellfungi of this world, who cultivate taste among
books, cobwebs, and spiders, rail at the extravagance 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, like the honest Chinese, thanked them heartily for the
jewels and finery with which they loaded themselves, merely for the
entertainment of bystanders, and blessed my stars that I was a bachelor.
The gentlemen were considerably numerous, and being, as usual, equipt in
their appropriate black uniforms, constituted a sable regiment, which
contributed not a little to the brilliant gayety of the ball-room. I
must confess I am indebted for this remark to our friend the cockney,
Mr. ’Sbidlikensflash, or _’Sbidlikens_, as he is called for shortness.
He is a fellow of infinite verbosity—stands in high favor—with
himself—and, like Caleb Quotem, is “up to everything.” I remember when a
comfortable, plump-looking citizen led into the room a fair damsel, who
looked for all the world like the personification of a rainbow;
’Sbidlikens 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 the story,
’Sbidlikens 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 Duport has usurped despotic sway over all the female heads
and heels in this city; horn-books, 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 whole
collective force of the “North River Society.”[8] ’Sbidlikens insists
that this dancing mania will inevitably continue as long as a
dancing-master will charge the fashionable price of five-and-twenty
dollars a quarter, and all other accomplishments are so vulgar as to be
attainable at “half the money;” but I put no faith in ’Sbidlikens’
candor in this particular. Among his infinitude of endowments, he is but
a poor proficient in dancing; and though he often flounders through a
cotillon, yet he never cut a pigeon-wing in his life.
In my mind there’s no position more positive and unexceptionable than
that most Frenchmen, dead or alive, are born dancers. I came pounce upon
this discovery at the assembly, and I immediately noted it down in my
register of indisputable facts; the public shall know all about it. As I
never dance cotillons, holding them to be monstrous distorters of the
human 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 energy and eloquence of sundry limbs,
which seemed to be flourishing about without appertaining to anybody.
After much investigation and difficulty, I at length traced them to
their respective owners, whom I found to be all Frenchmen to a man. Art
may have meddled somewhat in these affairs, but nature certainly did
more. I have since been considerably employed in calculations on this
subject; and by the most accurate computation 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 Euclid nor Pythagoras himself could demonstrate,
unfortunately 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, unraveled his step,
without omitting one angle or curve, and extricated himself without
breaking a thread of the lady’s dress! he then sprung up, like a
sturgeon, crossed his feet four times, and finished 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 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
loveliest offerings of the spring. ’Sbidlikens, to whom I made similar
remarks, assured me that they were very just and very prettily 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 distinction 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 splendor 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 officers.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NO. II.—WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4, 1807.
FROM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQUIRE.
In the conduct of an epic poem, it has been the custom, from time
immemorable, for the poet occasionally to introduce his reader to an
intimate acquaintance with the heroes of his story, by conducting him
into their tents, and giving him an opportunity of observing them in
their night-gown and slippers. However I despise the servile genius that
would descend to follow a precedent, though furnished by Homer himself,
and consider 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 moment my
whim is opposed to my opinion; and whenever this is the case, my 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 smile 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 will excuse
us for our merriment—’tis a way we’ve got. Evergreen, who is equally a
favorite 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 toward 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 of
posterity, and as a monument of the gallantry of their grandfathers, and
even hinted at the expediency of erecting a toll-gate there, to collect
the forfeits of the ladies. But the most flattering 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 detected by friend Anthony in the very fact of laughing
most obstreperously at the description of the little dancing Frenchman.
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 young people were particularly interested in the account of the
assembly. There was some difference of opinion respecting the new
planet, and the blooming nymph from the country; but as to the
compliment 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 extremely 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 information.” Several ladies
expressed their earnest desire that we would 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 quarter to those lads of spirit, who now and then cut their bottles
to enliven a tea-party with the humors of the dinner-table.
Will Wizard was not a little chagrined at having been mistaken for a
gentleman, “who is no more like me,” said Will, “than I like Hercules.”
“I was well assured,” continued Will, “that as our characters were drawn
from nature, the originals would be found in every society. And so it
has happened—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 recognized 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 representative; not that I care much about the matter, for it
must be acknowledged that the animal is a good-natured animal
enough,—and what is more, a fashionable animal,—and this is saying more
than to call him a conjurer. But I am much mistaken if he can claim any
affinity to the _Wizard_ family. Surely everybody knows Ding-dong, the
gentle Ding-dong, who pervades all space, who is here and there and
everywhere; no tea-party can be complete without Ding-dong, and his
appearance is sure to occasion a smile. Ding-dong has been the occasion
of much wit in his day; I have even seen many puny 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 miserable pun?—nobody’s name presents sooner than
Ding-dong’s; and it has been played upon with equal skill and equal
entertainment to the bystanders 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 Dilworth when a boy; and the other day, on being asked who was
the author of Macbeth, answered, without the least hesitation,
Shakespeare! 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 petty larcenies 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 color
of a ribbon 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 no doubt that by the time he arrives at years
of discretion, he will be a very accomplished, agreeable young fellow.”
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 mistaken 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 conjectures on the subject. Will is, in fact, a wiseacre by
inheritance. The Wizard family has long been celebrated for knowing more
than their neighbors, particularly concerning their neighbor’s affairs.
They were anciently called Josselin; but Will’s great-uncle, by the
father’s side, having been accidentally burnt for a witch in
Connecticut, in consequence of blowing up his own house in a
philosophical experiment, the family, in order to perpetuate the
recollection of this memorable 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 bookstore,
which is noted for being the favorite haunt of a number of literati,
some of whom rank high in the opinion of the world, and others rank
equally high in their own. Here I found a knot of queer fellows
listening to one of their company, who was reading our paper; I
particularly noticed Mr. Ichabod Fungus among the number.
Fungus is one of those fidgeting, meddling quidnuncs with which this
unhappy city is pestered—one of our “Q in a corner fellows,” who speaks
volumes in a wink, conveys most portentous information by laying his
finger beside his nose, and is always smelling a rat in the most
trifling occurrence. 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 anything
against the government, that no lurking treason was couched in all this
talk. These were dangerous times—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, undertook our
cause. Dick is known to the world as being a most knowing genius, who
can see as far as anybody—into a millstone, maintains, in the teeth of
all argument, that a spade is a spade; and will labor 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. Jefferson’s red _what-d’ye
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 mysterious Lord Burleigh nod, said he hoped it might
be so; but he was by no means satisfied with this attack upon the
President’s breeches, as “thereby hangs a tale.”
MR. WILSON’S CONCERT.
BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.
In my register of indisputable facts I have noted it conspicuously, that
all modern music is but mere dregs and draining of the ancient, and that
all the spirit and vigor of harmony has entirely evaporated in the lapse
of ages. O! for the chant of the Naiades and Dryades, the shell of the
Tritons, and the sweet warblings 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,[9] 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 bagpipe is the only instrument 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 gapings of the audience; though I will not
risk my credit as a connoisseur by saying whether they proceeded from
wonder or a violent inclination to doze. I was delighted to find in the
mazes of the crowd my particular friend ’Sbidlikens, 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 Paff’s musical tree,[10] 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 transatlantic judges, he suffers most horribly at our musical
entertainments, and assures me that what with the confounded scraping
and scratching and grating of our fiddlers, he thinks the sitting out
one of our concerts tantamount to the punishment of that unfortunate
saint who was frittered in two with a handsaw.
The concert was given in the tea-room at the City Hotel; an apartment
admirably calculated, by its dingy walls, beautifully marbled with
smoke, to show off the dresses and complexions of the ladies; and by the
flatness of its ceiling to repress those impertinent reverberations of
the music, which, whatever others may foolishly assert, are, as
’Sbidlikens says, “no better than repetitions of old stories.”
Mr. Wilson gave me infinite satisfaction by the gentility of his
demeanor, and the roguish looks he now and then cast at the ladies, but
we fear his excessive modesty threw him into some little 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 little man; but I beg leave to repeat the
advice so often given by the illustrious tenants of the theatrical
sky-parlor, to the gentlemen who are charged with the “nice conduct” of
chairs and tables—“make a bow, Johnny—Johnny, make a bow!”
I cannot, on this occasion, but express my surprise that certain
amateurs should be so frequently at concerts, considering what agonies
they suffer while a piece of music is playing. I defy any man of common
humanity, and who has not the heart of a Choctaw, to contemplate the
countenance of one of these unhappy victims of a fiddle-stick without
feeling a sentiment of compassion. His whole visage is distorted; he
rolls up his eyes, as M’Sycophant says, “like a duck in thunder,” and
the music seems to operate upon him like a fit of the colic; his very
bowels seem to sympathize at every twang of the catgut, as if he heard
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 countenance. I
have sometimes particularly noticed a hungry-looking Gaul, who torments
a huge bass viol, and who is doubtless the original of the famous
“Raw-head-and-bloody-bones,” so potent in frightening naughty children.
The person who played the French horn was very excellent in his way, but
’Sbidlikens could not relish his performance, having some time since
heard a gentleman amateur in Gotham play a solo on his _proboscis_, in a
style infinitely superior. Snout, the bellows-mender, never turned his
wind instrument more musically; nor did the celebrated “knight of the
burning lamp,” ever yield more exquisite entertainment with his nose;
this gentleman had latterly ceased to exhibit this prodigious
accomplishment, having, it was whispered, hired out his snout to a
ferryman, who had lost his conch-shell; 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 perfection of human bliss,
I was aroused from my revery by the entrance of an old servant in the
Cockloft livery, who handed me a letter, containing the following
address from my cousin and old college chum, Pindar Cockloft.
Honest Andrew, as he delivered it, informed me that his master, who
resides a little way from town, on reading a small pamphlet in a neat
yellow cover,[11] rubbed his hands with symptoms of great satisfaction,
called for his favorite Chinese inkstand, with two sprawling Mandarins
for its supporters, and wrote the letter which he had the honor to
present me.
As I foresee my cousin will one day become a great favorite with the
public, and as I know him to be somewhat punctilious as it respects
etiquette, I shall take this opportunity 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 humorists, as will be perceived when I
come to treat more of its history. My cousin Pindar is one of its most
conspicuous 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 employed in writing odes, sonnets,
epigrams, and elegies, which he seldom shows to anybody but myself after
they are written; and all the old chests, drawers, and chair-bottoms in
the house, teem with his productions.
In his younger 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
buckram 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
evening of his thirtieth birthday, as he sat by the fireside, as much in
love as ever was man in this 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 whimwham 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 reputation 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 unfortunate dancing-masters from their country to polish and
enlighten our hemisphere. This was a sad time for Pindar, who had taken
a genuine Cockloft prejudice against everything French, ever since he
was brought to death’s door by a _ragout_: he groaned at Ça Ira, and the
Marseilles Hymn had much the same effect upon him, that sharpening a
knife on a dry whetstone 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
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 inkstand, and made a
kind of growling retreat to Cockloft Hall,[12] where he has resided ever
since.
My cousin Pindar is of a mercurial disposition—a humorist without
ill-nature—he is of the true gunpowder temper; one flash, and all 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 humor 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 Leyden, 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 like summer clouds over the benevolent
sunshine which ever warmed his heart and lighted 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 all 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 acknowledge that the
world, or anything 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 humorist, and a humorist of the highest order. He has some of the
most intolerable whimwhams I ever met with in my life, and his oddities
are sufficient to eke out a hundred tolerable originals. But I will 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 laureateship he has solicited, and
with which we hereby invest him, recommending him and his effusions to
public reverence and respect.
LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF.
TO LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.
DEAR 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 wofully fash’d;
Has long been be-Frenchman’d, be-cockney’d, be-trash’d,
And our ladies bedevil’d, bewilder’d astray,
From the rules of their grandames have wandered away.
No longer that modest demeanor we meet,
Which whilom the eyes of our fathers did greet;
No longer be-mobbled, be-ruffled, be-quilled,
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.
O, how fondly my soul forms departed have traced,
When our ladies in stays, and in bodice well laced,
When bishop’d, and cushion’d, and hoop’d to the chin,
Well calash’d without, and well bolster’d within;
All cased in their buckrams, from crown down to tail,
Like O’Brallaghan’s mistress, were shaped like a pail.
Well—peace to those fashions—the joy of our eyes—
Tempura mutantur, new follies will rise;
Yet, “like 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 delicate 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!
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, like the poets, in thought would pursue
The elysium of bliss which was veiled from its view.
We are old-fashion’d fellows, our nieces will say:
Old-fashioned, 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, all shivering, some cold winter’s day,
So lavish their beauties and graces display,
And give to each fopling 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 labors sublime,
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 triplets 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 doggrel discharge of some muddle-brain’d pate,
I can grind it by wholesale—and give it its point,
With billingsgate dished up in rhymes out of joint.
I have read all the poets, and got them by heart;
Can slit 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 duties of love every noddle can fill.
O, ’twould do your heart good, Launce, to see my mill grind
Old stuff into verses and poems refin’d:—
Dan Spenser, Dan Chaucer, those poets of old,
Though covered with dust, are yet true sterling 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’ll fill it with credit and grace;
By the living! I’ll figure and cut you a dash—
As bold as Will Wizard, or ’Sbidlikensflash!
PINDAR COCKLOFT.
ADVERTISEMENT.
Perhaps the most fruitful source of mortification to a merry writer,
who, for the amusement of himself and the public, employs his leisure in
sketching odd characters from imagination, is, that he cannot flourish
his pen but every Jack-pudding 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 putting 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 sufficient consequence to engage our
attention, we should not care a rush about it, if they did not get into
a passion, and complain of having been ill used.
It is not in our hearts to hurt the feelings of one single mortal by
holding him up to public ridicule; and if it were, we lay it down as one
of our indisputable facts, that no man can be made ridiculous but by his
own folly. 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
determined to let these crusty gentry know what kind of satisfaction
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
kill our adversary, as is most likely, for we can every one 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 mistake of the first magnitude,
and lead very valiant gentlemen perhaps into 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 offered to his acceptance,
should not have the privilege of being cudgeled into the bargain. We
pride ourselves upon giving satisfaction in every department of our
paper; and to fill that of fighting, have engaged two of those strapping
heroes of the theatre, who figure in the retinues of our gingerbread
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 valiant warriors, armed
cap-a-pie, in buckram. Should, therefore, any great little man about
town take offense 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 will 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 return; this being what
we understand by “the satisfaction of a gentleman.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NO. III.—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1807
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.
As I delight in everything 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 traveller
enters this city whose appearance promises anything 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, unmeaning 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
generally mere birds of passage, whose plumage is often gay enough, I
own, but their notes, “heaven save the mark,” are as unmusical 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—O! 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 inundation of ganders from other climes? I would
not have any of my courteous and gentle readers suppose that I am
running a _muck_, full tilt, cut and slash, upon all foreigners
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 tickle a cockney, I may not be
understood as trimming 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 favorites; 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, therefore, 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 fellows,
possessing the true secret of being happy; which is nothing more than
thinking of nothing, talking about anything, and laughing at everything.
I mean only to tune up those little thingimys, 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 entertained me, I
particularly rank the magnanimous Mustapha Rub-a-dub Keli 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.[13] His conversation was to me a perpetual feast; I chuckled
with inward pleasure at his whimsical mistakes and unaffected
observations on men and manners, and I rolled each odd conceit “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, containing, 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 understands all
languages, not excepting that manufactured by Psalmanazar, I have been
enabled to accomplish 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 FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN,
CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS
HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI.
Thou wilt learn from this letter, most illustrious disciple of Mahomet,
that I have for some time resided in New York; the most polished, vast,
and magnificent city of the United States of America. But what to me are
its delights! I wander a captive through its splendid streets, I turn a
heavy eye on every rising day that beholds me banished from my country.
The Christian husbands here lament most bitterly any short absence from
home, though they leave but one wife behind to lament their departure;
what then must be the feelings of thy unhappy kinsman, while thus
lingering at an immeasurable distance from three-and-twenty of the most
lovely and obedient wives in all Tripoli! O Allah! shall thy servant
never again return to his native land, nor behold his beloved wives, who
beam on his memory beautiful as the rosy morn of the east, and graceful
as Mahomet’s camel!
Yet beautiful, O 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 from the inclemency of the seasons, or the
scrutinizing glances of the curious, and who it would seem belong to
nobody, are lovely as the houris that people the elysium of true
believers. 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 seraglios, and never permitted to go
abroad! surely the region of beauty, the Valley of the Graces, can
contain nothing so inimitably fair!
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 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 believe 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 comfort of all true
Mussulmans, and has given them wives with no more souls than cats and
dogs, and other necessary animals of the household.
Thou wilt 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
honor to the magnanimous Mustapha, captain of a ketch; they were
somewhat ragged and dirty in their equipments, but this we attributed to
their republican simplicity. One of them, in the zeal of admiration,
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, until the
interpreter informed us that this was the customary manner in which
great men were honored 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.
Thou wilt not as yet expect that I should give thee an account of the
laws and politics of this country. I will 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 bashaw, whom they
dignify with 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 vessel, which is best governed by its tail. The present
bashaw is a very plain old gentleman—something they say of a humorist,
as he amuses himself with impaling butterflies and pickling tadpoles; he
is rather declining in popularity, having given great offense by wearing
red breeches and tying his horse to a post.[14] 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 summer 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 superior 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 themselves 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 valuable are these silent
companions—what a price is given for them in the East, and what
entertaining wives they make. What delightful entertainment arises from
beholding the silent eloquence of their sighs and gestures; but a wife
possessed both of a tongue and a soul—monstrous! monstrous! is it
astonishing that these unhappy infidels should shrink from a union with
a woman so preposterously 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 should, perhaps,
inform thee that there are but nine Christian muses, who were formerly
pagans, but have since been converted, and that in this country we never
hear of a tenth, unless some crazy poet 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!
Since my arrival in this country, I have met with not less than a
hundred of these supernumerary muses and graces—and may Allah preserve
me from ever meeting with any more!
When I have studied this people more profoundly, I will write thee
again: in the mean time watch over my household, 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 splendors of this
luxurious capital, its gorgeous palaces, its stupendous mosques, and the
beautiful females who run wild in herds about its streets, can
obliterate thee from my remembrance. Thy name shall still be mentioned
in the five-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 blissful bowers of Eden.
MUSTAPHA.
FASHIONS.
BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.
_The following article is furnished me by a young lady of
unquestionable taste, and who is the oracle of fashion and frippery.
Being deeply initiated into all the mysteries of the toilet, she has
promised me, from time to time, a similar detail._
Mrs. Toole has for some time reigned unrivaled in the fashionable world,
and had the supreme direction of caps, bonnets, feathers, flowers, and
tinsel. She has dressed and undressed 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, like the tail of a paper kite. Her despotic sway, however,
threatens to be limited. A dangerous rival has sprung up in the person
of Madame Bouchard, an intrepid little woman, fresh from the
head-quarters of fashion and folly, and who has burst like a second
Bonaparte upon the fashionable world. Mrs. Toole, notwithstanding, seems
determined to dispute her ground bravely for the honor of old England.
The ladies have begun to arrange themselves under the banner 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 wise
dismayed, 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 in
Courtlandt street; but Madame atones for the inferiority 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 scrubby wig. Mrs. Toole is the tallest, but Madame
Bouchard has the longest nose. Mrs. Toole is fond of roast beef, but
Madame Bouchard is loyal in her adherence to onions; in short, so
equally 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 will carry the day, because she
wears a wig, has a long nose, talks French, loves onions, and does not
charge above ten times as much for a thing as it is worth.
_Under the direction of these high priestesses 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 perfectly 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 color of Castile soap. Shoes of kid, the thinnest that can
possibly be procured—as they tend to promote colds, and make a lady look
interesting—(_i. e._ _grizzly_). Picnic silk stockings, with lace
clocks, flesh-colored are most fashionable, as they have the appearance
of bare legs—_nudity_ being all the rage. The stockings carelessly
bespattered with mud, to agree with the gown, which should be bordered
about three inches deep with the most fashionable colored 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 color, thrown over one shoulder, like an
Indian blanket, with one end dragging on the ground.
_N. B._ If the ladies have not a red shawl at hand, a red petticoat,
turned topsy-turvy over the shoulders, would do just as well. This is
called being dressed _à 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-colored shawl, and the hair curiously ornamented
with little bits of newspapers, or pieces of a letter from a dear
friend. This is called the “Cinderella dress.”
The recipe for a full dress is as follows: take of spider-net, crape,
satin, gimp, catgut, gauze, whalebone, lace, bobbin, ribbons, and
artificial flowers, as much as will rig out the congregation of a
village church; to these, add as many spangles, beads, and gewgaws as
would be sufficient to turn the heads of all the fashionable fair ones
of Nootka Sound. Let Mrs. Toole or Madame Bouchard patch all 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 of supplying the place of beauty,
youth, and grace, and of reminding the spectator of that celebrated
region of finery called _Rag Fair_.
* * * * *
One of the greatest sources of amusement incident to our humorous
knight-errantry is to ramble about, and hear the various conjectures of
the town respecting our worships, whom everybody pretends to know as
well as Falstaff did Prince Hal, at Gad’s-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 public, who, with all its heads, is, we fear,
sadly off for brains, has, after long hovering, come souse down, like a
king-fisher, on the authors of Salmagundi, 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 obliged 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 corner, unnoticed and unknown,
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 praising over another man’s
back, is a situation so celestially whimsical, that we have done little
else than laugh in our sleeve ever since our first number was published.
The town has at length allayed the titillations of curiosity, by fixing
on two young gentlemen of literary 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 occasionally raise a smile by their
effusions; but pardon us, sweet sirs, if we modestly doubt your
capability of supporting the burden 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 like
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 be 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,
will never inflict a wound, unless, like his, they fly,
“heaven-directed,” to some conscience-struck bosom.
Another marvelous 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 anything in our lives. The moment we declared open war
against folly and stupidity, we expected to receive no quarter; and to
provoke a confederacy of all the blockheads in town. For it is one of
our indisputable facts, that so sure as you catch a gander by the tail,
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 saving the Capitol, we
hereby declare that we mean no offense whatever by comparing them to the
aforesaid confederacy. We have heard, in our walks, such criticism on
Salmagundi as almost induced a belief that folly had here, as in the
East, her moments of inspired idiotism. Every silly royster has, as if
by an instinctive sense of anticipated danger, joined 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 then have been apprehensive that our shafts had fallen to
the ground, innocent of the “blood or brains” of a single numskull. 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 sanguine 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 public applause as at
first, we most earnestly invite the attacks and censures of all 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 amongst 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 public 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 employment for some time to come.
PROCLAMATION, FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR 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 embellish the age,
Whether young boys or old boys, or numskull or sage:
Whether BULL DOGS, who cringe at their mistress’s feet,
Who sigh and who whine, and who try to look sweet;
Whether TOUGH DOGS, who squat down stock still in 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[15] on imperial champagne,
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, Pindar Cockloft, Esquire,
Am laureate, appointed at special desire;
A censor, self-dubbed, 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 vanished 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;”
Still own that some wisdom and beauty appears,
Though almost entombed in the rubbish of years.
No fierce nor tyrannical 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.
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 shall have its full sway;
New modes shall arise to astonish Broadway:
Red hats and red shawls still illumine the town,
And each belle, like a bon-fire, blaze up and down.
Fair spirits who brighten the gloom of our days,
Who cheer this dull scene with your heavenly rays,
No mortal can love you more firmly and true,
From the crown of the head to the sole of your shoe.
I’m old fashioned, ’tis true,—but still 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 steadfast in course.
Though the lover, enraptured, no longer appears,—
’Tis the guide and the guardian enlightened by years.
All ripen’d and mellow’d and soften’d by time,
The asperities polish’d which chafed in my prime;
I’m fully prepared for that delicate 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 chill 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—
Shall 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 pure 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 passed to the sky.
But as to those brainless pert bloods of 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 would prize;
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 my mirror, to let them survey
The figures they cut as they dash it away:
Should my good-humored verse no amendment produce,
Like scarecrows, 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 queer-looking angel erected by Paff,
“What shtop,” as he says, “all de people what come;
What smiles on dem all, and what peats on de trum.”
* * * * *
——“_How now, mooncalf?_”
We have been congratulating ourselves exceedingly on having, at length,
attracted the notice of a ponderous genius of this city, Dr. Christopher
Costive, LL. D., etc., who has spoken of us in such a manner that we are
ten times better pleased than ever we were before. It shall never be
said of us, that we have been outdone in the way of complimenting, and
we therefore assure Dr. Christopher Costive that, for a Yankee doodle
song, about “Sister Tabitha,” “our Cow,” and “dandy,” and “sugar candy,”
and all these jokes of truly _Eastern saltness_, we know no man more
“cute” than himself.
If Dr. Costive should find fault with having nothing but whipt syllabub
from us, we promise him that, if circumstances render it necessary, we
will occasionally give it a little variety by whipping him up in it as
completely as ever a dish of ass’s milk was whipt up in this world. Our
friend seems rather vociferous in his demand for a dish of “flummery,”
and as such a dish is not in our bill of fare, we immediately requested
our publisher to procure us one that would suit our friend’s appetite.
He has brought us “Democracy Unveiled, or Tyranny stripped of the Garb
of Patriotism,” by Christopher Costive, LL. D. etc., etc., etc., etc.,
etc., etc. We can now promise our friend to serve him up a plentiful
dish of flummery from his own shop, whenever he thinks fit to demand it,
and garnished with a little Salmagundi for sauce. We hope he will not
behave like his prototype, Dr. Lampedo, and gag at his own “patent
draught.”
Our respected friend appears a little worried that we do not write for
money. Now this looks ill of Dr. Costive—not that we thereby mean to
insinuate that Dr. Costive is an ill-looking personage; on the contrary,
we think him a great poet, a very great poet, the greatest poet of the
age, and, considering the excessive gravity of his person, we are the
more astonished at the sublime flights of his fat fancy. To convince him
that we are disposed to befriend him all in our power, we take this
opportunity to inform our numerous readers that there is such a man as
Dr. Christopher Costive, and that he publishes a _weakly_ paper, called
the “Weekly Inspector,” somewhere in this city, and that he writes _for
money_.[16] We, therefore, advise “everybody, man, woman, and child,
that can read, or get anybody to read for them, to purchase _his_
paper,” where they will find the true “bubble and squeak,” and
“topsy-turvy,” which Dr. Costive will at any time exchange _for money_.
Upon the whole, we consider him a very modest, decent, good-looking
_big_ man, who writes _for money_; being but “half a fish and half a
monster.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NO. IV.—TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1807.
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.
Perhaps there is no class of men to which the curious and literary are
more indebted than travellers—I mean travelmongers, who write whole
volumes about themselves, their horses, and their servants, interspersed
with anecdotes of innkeepers, droll sayings of stagedrivers, and
interesting memoirs 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 such 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 Cockloft, 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 Il
Signore Jeremy Cockloftico, a gouty old gentleman who flourished about
the time that Pliny the elder was smoked to death with the fire and
brimstone of Vesuvius; and whose travels, if he ever wrote any, are now
lost forever to the world. Jeremy is now 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 the family, dictates to his sisters
on every occasion, though they are some dozen or more years older than
himself—and never did son give mother better advice than Jeremy.
As old Cockloft was determined his son should be both a scholar and a
gentleman, he took great pains with his education, which was completed
at our university, where he became exceedingly expert in quizzing his
teachers and playing billiards. No student made better squibs and
crackers to blow 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 lightning-rods. He moreover learned
all the letters of the Greek alphabet; could demonstrate 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 well-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 fingers’ ends, and often hampers his father with his syllogisms, to
the great delight of the old gentleman; who considers the major, minor,
and conclusion, 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 the derivation of
Mango from Jeremiah King—as, Jeremiah King, Jerry King! Jerking, Girkin!
cucumber, Mango! In short, had Jeremy been a student at Oxford or
Cambridge, he would, in all probability, 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 numerous 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 by the world; and as his
father was anxious to give him 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 metropolis’ of Albany and Philadelphia.
Jeremy has travelled as every modern man of sense should 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 _home_ 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.
MEMORANDUMS FOR A TOUR TO BE ENTITLED “THE STRANGER IN NEW JERSEY, OR,
COCKNEY TRAVELLING.”[17]
BY JEREMY COCKLOFT, THE YOUNGER.
CHAPTER I.
The man in the moon[18]—preparations for departure—hints to travellers
about packing their trunks[19]—straps, buckles, and bed-cords—case of
pistols, _à la cockney_—five trunks, three bandboxes, a cocked hat, and
a medicine chest, _à la Française_—parting advice of my two
sisters—quere, why old maids are so particular in their cautions against
naughty women—description of Powles Hook ferry-boats—might be converted
into gun-boats, and defend our ports equally well with Albany
sloops—Brom the black ferryman—Charon—river Styx—ghosts;—Major Hunt—good
story—ferriage ninepence;—city of Harsimus—built on the spot where the
folk once danced on their stumps, while the devil fiddled—quere, why do
the Harsimites 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 stagedrivers love grog—causeway—ditch
on each side for folk to tumble into—famous place for _skilly-pots_;
Philadelphians call ’em tarapins—roast them under the ashes as we do
potatoes—quere, may not this be the reason that the Philadelphians 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 Gusto_ about it on my return;—Rattlesnake Hill, so called from
abounding with butterflies;—salt marsh, _surmounted_ here and there by a
solitary haystack—more tarapins—wonder why the Philadelphians don’t
establish a fishery here, and get a patent for it—bridge over the
Passaic—rate of toll—description of toll-boards—tollman had but one
eye—story how it _is possible_ he _may_ have lost the other—pence-table,
etc.[20]