Trenton—built above the head of navigation to encourage commerce—capital
of the State—only wants a castle, a bay, a mountain, a sea, and a
volcano, to bear a strong resemblance to the Bay of Naples[32]—supreme
court sitting—fat chief justice—used to get asleep on the bench after
dinner—gave judgment, I suppose, like Pilate’s wife, from his
dreams—reminded me of Justice Bridlegoose deciding by a throw of a die,
and of the oracle of the holy bottle[33]—attempted to kiss the
chambermaid—boxed my ears till they rung like our theatre-bell—girl had
lost one tooth—mem. all the American ladies prudes, and have bad teeth;
Anacreon Moore’s opinion on the matter. State house—fine place to see
the sturgeons jump up—query, whether sturgeons jump up by an impulse of
the tail, or whether they bounce up from the bottom by the elasticity of
their noses? Linkum Fidelius of the latter opinion—I too—sturgeon’s nose
capital for tennis-balls—learnt that at school—went to a ball—negro
wench principal musician! N. B. People of America have no fiddlers but
females!—origin of the phrase, “fiddle of your heart”—reasons why men
fiddle better than women; expedient of the Amazons, who were expert at
the bow; waiter at the city tavern—good story of his—nothing to the
purpose—never mind—fill up my book like Carr—make it sell. Saw a
democrat get into a stage followed by his dog.[34] N. B. This town
remarkable for dogs and democrats—superfine sentiment[35]—good story
from Joe Miller—ode to a piggin of butter—pensive meditations on a
mouse-hole—make a book as clear as a whistle!
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.
I have observed a particular intimacy for these few days past between
that dry wag, Will Wizard, and my cousin Pindar. The latter has taken
his winter quarters at old Cockloft’s, in the corner room opposite mine,
in order to be at hand and overlook the town. They hardly gave
themselves time, on Sunday last, to wait for the family toast of “our
absent friends,” before they adjourned to Pindar’s chamber. In the
course of an hour my cousin’s enormous mandarin inkstand was sent down
to be replenished. I began to be seriously alarmed, for I thought if
they had exhausted its contents without exhausting their subject, there
was no knowing where it would end.
On returning to tea, my cousin Pindar was observed to rub his hands, a
sure sign that something tickled his fancy; he, however, maintained as
mysterious a countenance as a Seventh Ward politician. As to Will
Wizard, he took longer strides than usual, his inflexible phiz had an
uncommonly knowing air, and a sagacious wink occasionally betrayed that
he had more in his head than he chose to communicate. The whole family
(who in truth are much given to _wonder_ at everything) were sadly
puzzled to conjecture what their two precious noddles had been bothering
about.
In the evening, after I had retreated to my citadel, the elbow-chair, I
was surprised by the abrupt entrance of these two worthies. My cousin
opened the budget at once: he declared that it was as necessary for a
modern poet to have an assistant, as for Don Quixote to have a
Sancho—that it was the fashion for poets, nowadays, to write so
ineffably obscure, that every line required a page of notes to explain
its meaning, and render its “darkness visible”—that a modern poem could
no more succeed without notes, than a paper kite could fly without a
tail. In a word, Pegasus had become a most mulish animal, and would not
budge a foot, unless he lumbered along a cart-load of quotations and
explanations, and illustrations at his heels: he had therefore prevailed
on Will Wizard to assist him occasionally as annotator and illustrator.
As a specimen of their united labors, he handed me the following
complimentary ode to that king of the buzzards, Dr. Christopher Costive,
informing me that he had plenty more on hand whenever occasion required
it. I had been rather surprised lately at the Doctor’s meddling with us,
as he was sure of gaining more kicks than coppers in return; but I am
told an ass loves to have his muzzle scratched with nettles. On
expressing my surprise, Will informed me that it was all a sham battle;
that he was very intimate with the Doctor, and could relate a thousand
diverting anecdotes concerning him; and that the Doctor, finding we were
in want of a butt, had generously volunteered himself as our target. I
wish him joy of his bargain.
In the following poem it will be observed that, while my cousin Pindar
tunes his pipe on the top of the page, Will Wizard worries away at his
thorough bass below. The notes of a modern poem being like the sound of
a French horn, bassoon, kettle-drum, and bass viol, in our orchestra,
which make such a confounded racket, that they entirely drown the song;
and no man, who has not the sublime ear of a connoisseur, can tell what
the devil they’re playing.
FLUMMERY.
FROM THE MILL[36] OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.
_Being a Poem with Notes, or rather_ Notes with a Poem;[37] _in the
manner of_
DOCTOR[38] CHRISTOPHER COSTIVE.
“Prick me Bull calf till he roars.”[39]
_Falstaff._
The greatest[40] poet of our day,
From State of Maine to Louisiana;[41]
The hero who did ’sist upon’t,
He wou’dn’t be deputy to Mr. Hunt;[42]
Who rear’d a gallows for each elf, and
Did for _hangman_ his own self stand.[43]
And made folks think it very odd, he
Should turn _Jack Ketch_ to everybody,
The modern mounter of Pegasus,
The clumsy jolter of Jackasses,[44]
Who, now the poet’s dray horse starts on,
Anon, the gibbet hurdle carts on,
Now o’er a poem dozes happy,
And next expertly draws the cap; he
Who cares not though the world should know it
That he’s half hangman, half a poet.[45]
Who gibbeted the knaves so knowing,
That kept Democracy a-going,
Hung his _fac-simile_ famed Toney[46]
Pasquin, the friend of Mr. Honé.
Who drags like snail his filthy slime
Through many a ragged, hobbling rhyme,
Then calls his billingsgate—sarcastic!
His drabbling doggrel—Hudibrastic!
[Good lack, my friends, ’twould make you soon[47] laugh,
To see this jolter-headed moon-calf,
From Hudibras his honors steal
And break Sam Butler on the wheel.][48]
With other things that I might tell ye on
Performed by this rump-fed hellion[49]
—But not o’er long to dwell upon’t,
This man as big as an elephant,[50]
This _sweetest_ witling of the age,[51]
This hero, hangman, critic, sage,[52]
This poet of five hundred pound[53]
Has come to grace our hapless town.
And when he entered, every goose
Began to cackle like the deuce;
The asses brayed to one another—
’Twas plain—the creatures smelt a brother.
NOTES, BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.
Footnote 36:
_Mill._] As we are not a little anxious to cultivate the intimacy so
happily commenced between the Doctor and ourselves, we feel bound in
candor to confess the charge made against us, of having borrowed from
him some of the phrases and ideas of our last number; and we justify
ourselves by attributing it to our high regard for his talents: for
what can be a greater proof of friendship, nowadays, than borrowing?
If we were his enemies, we might justify it by the old maxim of
“foiling the devil with his own weapons.” As to the “mill,” which the
Doctor so vociferously claims, honest Pindar acknowledges that he
borrowed the idea from the Doctor’s writings in general, for he never
dipped in them without thinking of our nocturnal music-grinder, who
continually grinds over and over the same sleepy tune of, “O, hard is
my fate.”
Footnote 37:
_Notes with a Poem._] Whatever merit may appear in this Poem, my
friend Cockloft must own that it is entirely owing to his close
adherence to his _big_ prototype, Dr. Caustic. The rhymes are
generally _borrowed_ from the Doctor’s own works, possessing all that
quaintness, cuteness, and clumsiness, for which he is remarkable. As
the lesser thing should always depend upon the greater, we have rather
inverted the usual title of such works, and made the poem minor. We
recommend the Doctor’s mode of _compiling_ a book to all the nums of
the day—as an example, we instance his “Terrible Tractoration,” of
which, as few buy, and still fewer read it (a proof that the town are
not quite such fools as the Doctor would make them), we shall say
little. The book was smothered in notes, like a goose in onions—some
ill-natured cynics have asserted that what little whim the work
contained lay entirely in the notes, which we are sorry to say were
not written by the Doctor; his poem might therefore be said to
resemble the _leg of a stool_, dressed up with _savory sauce_; or, as
the Doctor will understand it better, that famous dish called
_pumpkin-pie_, where, though the _pumpkin_ gives the _name_ to the
dish, yet the great skill of the cook is to hide the twang of it as
much as possible with _spice_ and _sugar_.
Footnote 38:
_Doctor._] The Doctor, we are told, was not bred a physician; nor was
he indebted for his appellation to a gratuitous donation from any
university, as Doctor of Laws—he was humorously so dubbed by his
neighbors in Vermont, on account of having once benevolently physicked
a sick horse—his works bear testimony to his drenching abilities; and
we may justly apply to him an unlucky epigram, written on a brother
quack in physic and poetry:—
“For physic and farces
His equal there scarce is—
His _farces_ are _physic_—
His _physic_ a _farce_ is.”
Footnote 39:
_Prick Bull calf, etc._] We had not the least expectation that our
notice of Doctor Costive, in the last number, would have put him into
such an indecent passion. Bless us, how he has roared! and like
Falstaff not only roared but “ran and roared”—
——“unpack’d his heart with words,
And fell a cursing—like a very drab!
A scullion!”
He has given us a most woful _scolding_ through some eight or nine
columns, and plainly proved that our work was not worth a fig, because
“Salmagundi” had been heretofore given as a title to another
work—Launcelot Langstaff was evidently copied from Isaac Bickerstaff,
because they both ended with _staff_—“Whimwhams” was the same as
“Flimflams”—“Will Wizard” was taken from—the Lord knows where;
_Wintry_ was accidentally misspelled or misprinted _Wintery_, and
“_Weakly_” was borrowed from his own _Weakly_ productions. O, Midas,
Midas, how thine ears do loom through the fog of thy writings. When a
man of the Doctor’s gumption can write nine columns against our work,
and discover no greater faults, we may well be vain—were we to
criticise our own writings, they would stand a much poorer chance. In
spite of the Doctor’s crustiness we still love him in our hearts—he
may scold like an old woman but we know it all arises from that
excessive irritability common to all men who have “written a book,”
and particularly a book of doggerel rhymes. We again assure him of our
perfect good-will toward himself and his most amiable offspring, that
delectable pair of twin brothers, _Terrible Tractoration_ and
_Democracy Unveiled_. May the whole world in general, and posterity in
particular, know the proper distinction between Hudibrastic and
Doggerel, and acquit the Doctor from the imputation meanly leveled
against him by sundry nincoms of imitating Hudibras. We are sorry that
he should ever have been thought capable of descending to be a
copyist, and we challenge the whole world to deny that the Doctor’s
verse is doggerel, genuine, broken-winded, rickety doggerel, whatever
his enemies may insist to the contrary. The Doctor’s waggery, however,
like that of many other double-headed wits, seems often to have been
taken by the wrong end. On the first appearance of his _Terrible
Tractoration_, the critics were absolutely at a loss, such was the
delicacy of his wit, to say whether he was the champion or opponent of
Perkinism. Thus the _Critical Review_ for 1803: “His real object
cannot always be ascertained—we _think_ him, however, the friend of
the Tractors.” Either the Doctor or the critic must have been a
dunderhead—we charitably suppose the critic. The Doctor afterward,
like “John-a-Gudgeon” in the _Pleader’s Guide_, explained, and his
explanation proved so perfectly satisfactory that there were very few
of the reviewers but could tell, or at least _guess_ at his object.
The fact was, the Doctor, good inoffensive soul, did not mean to
attack anything—except common sense. We recommend this work as a
soporific specimen of the Doctor’s skill in _balderdash_.
Footnote 40:
_Greatest poet._] _Great_ is sometimes a positive, sometimes a
figurative term—as we say a _great man_, a _great mountain_, or when
speaking of the Doctor, _great man mountain_—having no allusion here
to the mountain which brought forth a mouse. When, however, we speak
of the Doctor as a _great_ man or great poet, we mean to be understood
that he is some six feet six inches high—three feet across the
shoulders, nine round the paunch—that he weighs about half a ton, and
is withal most clumsily hung together.
Footnote 41:
_Louisiana._] Though we plume ourselves on adhering closely to the
Doctor’s rhymes, yet we have taken the liberty of differing a little
in the pronunciation of this word—the Doctor gives it in the true
eastern dialect, Lousy-anee—but to give it _à la Costive_—
“Which late, ’tis said, in weather rainy,
Was melted in Louisiana.”
Again: for when the Doctor gets hold of a good rhyme, he is a “woundy”
toad for harping on it.
“But please his highness ship, I won’t
Be deputy to Mr. Hunt:
No—were it offered ’twould be vain, he
Won’t catch me in Louisiana (or Lousy-anee”).
These two latter lines are truly as musical as marrowbones and
cleavers, and remind us of that sweet couplet, by the Doctor’s rival,
the inimitable Searson
“From this seat I pass’d to Alexandria,
And am pleased through rural scenes to wander.”
Sear. _Mount Ver._
If our reader wishes for more specimens of the Doctor’s knack at
rhyming, we’ll give him the oft-repeated tags of “rogues and
demagogues,” “brewing and ruin,” “wildering and children,” “women and
common,” “trimming and women,” “well-knows and fellows,” “comparison
and harass’d-em;” together with an occasional mixture of those attic
eastern jingles of “dandy and handy” and “sugar candy.” The Doctor and
Searson’s poetic contest is similar to one that whilom took place
between two honest tars (we beg the gentle Joe Miller’s pardon for
_borrowing_ an anecdote); one gave as _prize couplet_:—
“As she slips she slides along,
A faithful friend is hard to find.”
but the other _rhymester_ beat him all hollow by singing out
“My quart pot holds a gallon,
By zounds.”
Footnote 42:
_Deputy to Mr. Hunt._] Mr. Hunt was a _little_ man and a young man;
the Doctor, although of the same age, feeling the _immensity_ of his
qualifications, refuses to second such a governor, urging his _size_,
and like Billy Bugby, alleging that what he wanted in years he made up
in _bulk_; and if he lacked in brains, he atoned for all in _garbage_.
Footnote 43:
_Did for hangman, etc._] How the Doctor ever came to stumble on this
unhappy idea, we are at a loss to imagine—it is an odd “whimwham” for
a fellow to dub himself with the humorous epithet of _hangman_. “We
would not have his enemies say so.” Whether the Doctor has a _hanging
look_ or no, we leave others to determine. We are certain he is in no
danger of the gallows himself; but we warn him to take care how he
visits Connecticut—he may chance to be burnt for a witch. We give the
Doctor’s own claim to his _Tyburn title_.
“Now since ye are a ruffian crew,
As honest Jack Ketch ever knew;
No threats nor growling shall prohibit
My hanging you on satire’s gibbet.” _Vide_ Costive.
Footnote 44:
_This clumsy jolter of jackasses._] As this line partakes of the true
Costive obscurity, we beg leave to explain. There is no intention of
calling the Doctor a jackass, we only mean that he makes an ass of
Pegasus, and even when on poor Pegasus (so degraded) he is but a
miserable rider. His trotting, pacing, nigglety-nagglety lines, put us
often in mind of that pious but quaint expression about the “devil
riding rough shod over a soul.”
Footnote 45:
_Half a poet._] O, fie! friend Cockloft, this savors of sheer envy.
Were there any doubts of the Doctor’s being a whole poet—aye, and a
_big_ poet, the following verse would set them at rest. It shows that
he is a complete jockey on Pegasus; and when the poor nag won’t pace,
he’ll cudgel him as soundly as he does his own brains:—
“Yes, we were ’raptured when he said
We’re all republican, all fed-
Ral fellow-citizens, Americans,
And hoped we’d done with faction’s hurricanes!”—_Costive._
Is this poetic frenzy (alias idiotism), or is it turgid stupidity?
Truly it is as smooth as a pine-log causeway; it confirms the Doctor’s
right to his _sir-name_, and can only be matched by a stave from the
Doctor’s contemporary bard and rival _rhymester_, Searson—videlicet:—
“From house to house soon took my departure,
And to the garden look’d for sweet nature.
The fishing very great at Mount Vernon,
When there with other scenes I look’d upon.
This pleasing seat hath its prospects so high,
That one would think ’twas for astronomy,
’Twould answer for an observatory.”
The reader will perceive the similarity in taste, style, and ear of
these rival poets. I have their works bound up together, and
Minshull’s into the bargain. It shall go hard but they shall all
descend the gutter of immortality together.
Footnote 46:
_His fac-simile, famed Toney._] The Doctor’s abusing poor Toney
Pasquin, brought forcibly to our recollection the vulgar cant saying
about the pot and the kettle. Perhaps no two of the _great_ poets of
the day are more alike, in most particulars, than Doctor Costive and
honest Toney. The Doctor is a true poetic blackguard—and so is Toney.
The Doctor is an adept in the Billingsgate vocabulary—so is Toney. The
Doctor has bespattered many a poor devil who never offended him—so has
Toney. The Doctor has written a book—so has Toney. It may be said of
each of them—
“We will not rake the dunghill for his crimes,
Who knows the man will never read his rhymes.”
The only particular in which they disagree is, that Toney has
occasionally been convicted of saying a good thing—the gentle
stupidity of the Doctor being entirely innocent of anything of the
kind.
“Oh, here’s another pumpion, the cramm’d son of a starved usurer,
Cacafogo. Both their brains buttered cannot make two spoonsful.”—_Rule
a Wife._
Footnote 47:
_Soon._] This word is entirely unnecessary to the sense, and is
dragged in for no other purpose whatever but to eke out the line, in
humble _imitation_ of a dull, but honest expedient, frequently made
use of by the illustrious Searson, and his great rival, Doctor
Costive.
Footnote 48:
_And break, etc._] It has for some time been a trick with many a
sleepy scribbler, beside the Doctor, though now it has grown rather
notorious, to break their crabbed lines with a “fist or stick,” or a
crowbar, and then term their _chopped hay_ Hudibrastic—thus is poetry
daily put on the rack; and thus is poor Butler crucified every hour.
Footnote 49:
_Rump-fed hellion._] Lest the Doctor should here again accuse us of
_borrowing_—a thing, by the by, we strongly suspect him of, as we
think we can discover that many of his thoughts, and certainly some of
his rhymes, are _borrowed_ from the immortal Searson and the
inimitable Minshull—we acknowledge that we are indebted for this line
to Shakespeare. Whether the term _rump-fed_ applies to the Doctor or
not, we cannot exactly tell; but if we were not afraid of swelling our
notes, we would, following the example of the Doctor in his _Democracy
Unveiled_, give our readers an account of the famous _Rump_
Parliament—and truly ’twould be as much in point as most of the notes
in that celebrated work.
_Hellion._ “A deputy scullion employed in regions below ‘to cook up
the broth.’”—Link. Fid. The Doctor, good man, has employed himself,
while on earth, as far as his _weakly_ powers would go, in stewing up
many a woful kettle of fish.
“Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Shakespeare must certainly have had the Doctor’s weekly mess of
_bubble_ and _squeak_ in view, when he wrote the above.
Footnote 50:
_As big as an elephant._] There is more truth than poetry in this
comparison. The following curious anecdote was told me by the Doctor
himself, when I breakfasted with him the other morning: The elephant
which travelled lately through our country, was shown in New England;
two simple country girls, desirous of seeing what kind of a beast it
was, applied for admittance. On entering the room, the Doctor, who was
stooping to tie his shoe-string with his back toward them, was for a
moment taken for the elephant! They declared it was a clumsy
creature—“they could not make head nor tail of it.” No wonder, poor
things, the critics were as much puzzled themselves, as we have
already shown.
Footnote 51:
_Sweetest witling._] A poetic license, the Doctor certainly being none
of the sweetest of personages. Many a fair flower, however, springs
out of a dunghill—and the Doctor is not the first poet who has written
a _sweet_ song in “marvelous dirty linen.”
Footnote 52:
_This hero, hangman, etc._]
“All hushed in mute attention sit,
To hear this critic, poet, wit,
Philosopher, all, all at once,
And to complete them, all this DUNCE.”
_Lloyd._
Footnote 53:
_Five hundred pound._] _i. e._ five hundred pounds weight; or in true
avoirdupois, 4 cwt. 1 qu. 24 lbs.
GENERAL REMARK.
We have endeavored to copy the Doctor’s style and manner as correctly as
possible throughout this charming poem; the _rhymes_ are chiefly
“filched” from his own _labors_, and jingle as harmoniously as sleigh
bells—like him, we have sometimes risen and sometimes descended, with
all his leaden profundity. Some poets sip in the Heliconian stream,
others dabble in it. The Doctor exceeds them all—he has a true poetic
DIVING-BELL—plunges boldly to the bottom, and there drabbles in the mud
like a flounder. In the _gallows_ part of his poem, the Doctor may truly
be said to _rise_; and in our touch on the Helicon, we have almost
equaled those profound sinkings of his genius, where the Doctor even
descends _below himself_. We conclude with _borrowing_ a speech from old
Shakespeare—“Give me thy hand,” Doctor, “I am sorry I beat thee; but
while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head.”
NOTICE.
While in a “state militant,” waging war with folly and stupidity, and
assailed on all sides by a combination of nincoms and numsculls, we are
gratified to find that our careless effusions have received the
approbation of men of wit and genius. We have expressed heretofore our
contempt for the applause of _the million_, but we confess ourselves
ambitious of the praises of _the few_; we have read, therefore, with
infinite self-congratulation the encomiums passed on our productions by
the learned and liberal editor of the “People’s Friend.” The attacks of
that _billingsgate droll_, Dr. Costive, and his whole _North River
fraternity_, could not give us greater delight. We also publish with
pride the following Card from the authors of “The Echo,”[54] a work
which we have commended to a conspicuous post in our library, and we do
hereby shake its authors by the hand as a set of right merry wags,
choice spirits, and, what we think better than all, genuine humorists.
CARD.
“The authors of THE ECHO send a copy of it to the writers of SALMAGUNDI,
which they request them to accept, as a mark of the pleasure they have
received from their Cervantic effusions.”
Now we are in the humor of card writing, we would acknowledge the
reception of several effusions in prose and verse, which, though they do
great credit to the writers, and would doubtless be both pleasing and
instructive to the public, yet do not come exactly within the intention
of our work; the authors, therefore, will excuse our not publishing
them.
We have likewise received a note written in a French hand, but in
villainous bad English. Will Wizard has been at much pains to decipher
it, but in vain; it is as unintelligible as a Herculanean manuscript. He
has discovered, however, that it is a vindication of dancing, together
with a long eulogy on the _pas de chat_.
As a considerable part of this paper is taken up with a stupid subject,
namely; the Doctor, and we do not wish that our readers should pay for
“flummery” merely, we have directed our publisher to give them eight
pages extra; this will account for the unusual size of the present
number. We confess we _borrowed_ this idea, among many others, from the
Doctor, who lately finding that his readers were dissatisfied with the
_contents_ of his “_weekly_” paper, endeavored to put them in good humor
by doubling the _bulk_; this he waggishly enough terms _doubling the
dose_—O, the droll dog!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NO. V.—SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1807.
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.
The following letter from my friend Mustapha appears to have been
written some time subsequent to the one already published. Were I to
judge from its contents, I should suppose it was suggested by the
splendid review of the twenty-fifth of last November, when a pair of
colors were presented at the City Hall, to the regiments of artillery;
and when a huge dinner was devoured by our corporation, in the honorable
remembrance of the evacuation of this city. I am happy to find that the
laudable spirit of military emulation which prevails in our city has
attracted the attention of a stranger of Mustapha’s sagacity; by
military emulation I mean that spirited rivalry in the size of a hat,
the length of a feather, and the gingerbread finery of a sword-belt.
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.
Thou hast heard, O Abdallah, of the great magician Muley Fuz, who could
change a blooming land blessed with all the elysian charms of hill and
dale, of glade and grove, of fruit and flower, into a desert, frightful,
solitary, and forlorn; who, with the wave of his wand could transform
even the disciples of Mahomet into grinning apes and chattering monkeys.
Surely, thought I to myself this morning, the dreadful Muley has been
exercising his infernal enchantments on these unhappy infidels. Listen,
O Abdallah, and wonder! Last night I committed myself to tranquil
slumber, encompassed with all the monotonous tokens of peace, and this
morning I awoke enveloped in the noise, the bustle, the clangor, and the
shouts of war. Everything was changed, as if by magic. An immense army
had sprung up, like mushrooms, in a night, and all the cobblers,
tailors, and tinkers of the city had mounted the nodding plume; had
become, in the twinkling of an eye, helmeted heroes and war-worn
veterans.
Alarmed at the beating of drums, the braying of trumpets, and the
shouting of the multitude, I dressed myself in haste, sallied forth, and
followed a prodigious crowd of people to a place called the Battery.
This is so denominated, I am told, from having once been defended with
formidable _wooden_ bulwarks, which in the course of a hard winter were
_thriftily_ pulled to pieces by an _economic_ corporation, to be
distributed for fire-wood among the poor; this was done at the hint of a
cunning old engineer, who assured them it was the only way in which
their fortifications would ever be able to keep up a warm fire. ECONOMY,
my friend, is the watch-word of this nation; I have been studying for a
month past to divine its meaning, but truly am as much perplexed as
ever. It is a kind of national starvation; an experiment how many
comforts and necessaries the body politic can be deprived of before it
perishes. It has already arrived to a lamentable degree of debility, and
promises to share the fate of the Arabian philosopher, who proved that
he could live without food, but unfortunately died just as he had
brought his experiment to perfection.
On arriving at the Battery, I found an immense army of SIX HUNDRED MEN,
drawn up in a true Mussulman crescent. At first I supposed this was in
compliment to myself, but my interpreter informed me that it was done
merely for want of room—the corporation not being able to afford them
sufficient to display in a straight line. As I expected a display of
some grand evolutions and military maneuvers, I determined to remain a
tranquil spectator, in hopes that I might possibly collect some hints
which might be of service to His Highness.
This great body of men, I perceived, was under the command of a small
_bashaw_, in yellow and gold, with white nodding plumes, and most
formidable whiskers; which, contrary to the Tripolitan fashion, were in
the neighborhood of his ears instead of his nose. He had two attendants
called aid-de-camps (or _tails_), being similar to a bashaw with two
tails. The bashaw, though commander-in-chief, seemed to have little more
to do than myself; he was a spectator within the lines, and I without:
he was clear of the rabble, and I was encompassed by them; this was the
only difference between us, except that he had the best opportunity of
showing his clothes. I waited an hour or two with exemplary patience,
expecting to see some grand military evolutions or a sham battle
exhibited; but no such thing took place; the men stood stock still,
supporting their arms, groaning under the fatigues of war, and now and
then sending out a foraging party to levy contributions of beer and a
favorite beverage which they denominated grog. As I perceived the crowd
very active in examining the line, from one extreme to the other, and as
I could see no other purpose for which these sunshine warriors should be
exposed so long to the merciless attacks of the wind and weather, I of
course concluded that this must be _the review_.
In about two hours the army was put in motion, and marched through some
narrow streets—there the economic corporation had carefully provided a
soft carpet of mud—to a magnificent castle of painted brick, decorated
with grand pillars of pine boards. By the ardor which brightened in each
countenance, I soon perceived that this castle was to undergo a vigorous
attack. As the ordnance of the castle was perfectly silent, and as they
had nothing but a straight street to advance through, they made their
approaches with great courage and admirable regularity, until within
about a hundred feet of the castle a pump opposed a formidable obstacle
in their way, and put the whole army to a nonplus. The circumstance was
sudden and unlooked for: the commanding officer ran over all the
military tactics with which his head was crammed, but none offered any
expedient for the present awful emergency. The pump maintained its post,
and so did the commander; there was no knowing which was most at a
stand. The commanding officer ordered his men to wheel and take it in
flank; the army accordingly wheeled and came full butt against it in the
rear, exactly as they were before, “Wheel to the left!” cried the
officer; they did so, and again as before the inveterate pump
intercepted their progress. “Right about face!” cried the officer; the
men obeyed, but bungled—they _faced back to back_. Upon this the bashaw
with two tails, with great coolness, undauntedly ordered his men to push
right forward, pell-mell, pump or no pump; they gallantly obeyed; after
unheard-of acts of bravery the pump was carried, without the loss of a
man, and the army firmly intrenched itself under the walls of the
castle. The bashaw had then a council of war with his officers; the most
vigorous measures were resolved on. An advanced guard of musicians were
ordered to attack the castle without mercy. Then the whole band opened a
most tremendous battery of drums, fifes, tambourines, and trumpets, and
kept up a thundering assault, as if the castle like the walls of
Jericho, spoken of in the Jewish Chronicles, would tumble down at the
blowing of rams’ horns. After some time a parley ensued. The grand
bashaw of the city appeared on the battlements of the castle, and as far
as I could understand from circumstances, dared the little bashaw of two
tails to single combat—this thou knowest was in the style of ancient
chivalry—the little bashaw dismounted with great intrepidity, and
ascended the battlements of the castle, where the great bashaw waited to
receive him, attended by numerous dignitaries and worthies of his court,
one of whom bore the splendid banners of the castle. The battle was
carried on entirely by words, according to the universal custom of this
country, of which I shall speak to thee more fully hereafter. The grand
bashaw made a furious attack in a speech of considerable length; the
little bashaw, by no means appalled, retorted with great spirit. The
grand bashaw attempted to rip him up with an argument, or stun him with
a solid fact; but the little bashaw parried them both with admirable
adroitness, and run him clean through and through with a syllogism. The
grand bashaw was overthrown, the banners of the castle yielded up to the
little bashaw, and the castle surrendered after a vigorous defense of
three hours, during which the besiegers suffered great extremity from
muddy streets and a drizzling atmosphere.
On returning to dinner I soon discovered that as usual I had been
indulging in a great mistake. The matter was all clearly explained to me
by a fellow-lodger, who on ordinary occasions moves in the humble
character of a tailor, but in the present instance figured in a high
military station, denominated _corporal_. He informed me that what I had
mistaken for a castle was the splendid palace of the municipality, and
that the supposed attack was nothing more than the delivery of a flag
given by the authorities, to the army, for its magnanimous defense of
the town for upward of twenty years past, that is, ever since the last
war! O my friend, surely everything in this country is on a great
scale!—The conversation insensibly turned upon the military
establishment of the nation; and I do assure thee that my friend, the
tailor, though being, according to a national proverb, but the ninth
part of a man, yet acquitted himself on military concerns as ably as the
grand bashaw of the empire himself. He observed that their rulers had
decided that wars were very useless and expensive, and ill befitting an
economic, philosophic nation; they had therefore made up their minds
never to have any wars, and consequently there was no need of soldiers
or military discipline. As, however, it was thought highly ornamental to
a city to have a number of men dressed in fine clothes and _feathers_,
strutting about the streets on a holiday,—and as the women and children
were particularly fond of such _raree shows_, it was ordered that the
tailors of the different cities throughout the empire should, forthwith,
go to work and cut out and manufacture soldiers as fast as their shears
and needles would permit.
These soldiers have no pecuniary pay; and their only recompense for the
immense services which they render their country, in their voluntary
parades, is the plunder of smiles, and winks, and nods which they extort
from the ladies. As they have no opportunity, like the vagrant Arabs, of
making inroads on their neighbors: and as it is necessary to keep up
their military spirit, the town is therefore now and then, but
particularly on two days of the year, given up to their ravages. The
arrangements are contrived with admirable address, so that every
officer, from the bashaw down to the drum-major, the chief of the
eunuchs, or musicians, shall have his share of that invaluable booty,
the admiration of the fair. As to the soldiers, poor animals, they, like
the privates in all great armies, have to bear the brunt of danger and
fatigue, while their officers receive all the glory and reward. The
narrative of a parade day will exemplify this more clearly.
The chief bashaw, in the plenitude of his authority, orders a grand
review of the whole army at two o’clock. The bashaw with two tails, that
he may have an opportunity of vaporing about, as greatest man on the
field, orders the army to assemble at twelve. The kiay, or colonel, as
he is called, that is, commander of one hundred and twenty men, orders
his regiment or tribe to collect one mile at least from the place of
parade at eleven. Each captain, or fag-rag, as we term them, commands
his squad to meet at ten at least half a mile from the regimental
parade; and to close all, the chief of the eunuchs orders his infernal
concert of fifes, trumpets, cymbals, and kettle-drums to assemble at
ten!—from that moment the city receives no quarter. All is noise,
hooting, hubbub, and combustion. Every window, door, crack, and
loophole, from the garret to the cellar, is crowded with the fascinating
fair of all ages and of all complexions. The mistress smiles through the
windows of the drawing-room; the chubby chambermaid lolls out of the
attic casement, and a host of sooty wenches roll their white eyes and
grin and chatter from the cellar door. Every nymph seems anxious to
yield voluntarily that tribute which the heroes of their country demand.
First struts the chief eunuch, or drum-major, at the head of his sable
band, magnificently arrayed in tarnished scarlet. Alexander himself
could not have spurned the earth more superbly. A host of ragged boys
shout in his train, and inflate the bosom of the warrior with tenfold
self-complacency. After he has rattled his kettle-drums through the
town, and swelled and swaggered like a turkey-cock before all the dingy
Floras, and Dianas, and Junos, and Didos of his acquaintance, he repairs
to his place of destination loaded with a rich booty of smiles and
approbation. Next comes the FAG-RAG, or captain, at the head of his
mighty band, consisting of one lieutenant, one ensign, or mute, four
sergeants, four corporals, one drummer, one fifer, and if he has any
privates so much the better for himself. In marching to the regimental
parade, he is sure to paddle through the street or lane which is honored
with the residence of his mistress or intended, whom he resolutely lays
under a heavy contribution. Truly it is delectable to behold these
heroes, as they march, cast side glances at the upper windows; to
collect the smiles, the nods, and the winks, which the enraptured fair
ones lavish profusely on the magnanimous defenders of their country.
The fag-rags having conducted their squads to their respective
regiments, then comes the turn of the colonel, a bashaw with no tails,
for all eyes are now directed to him; and the fag-rags, and the eunuchs,
and the kettle-drummers, having had their hour of notoriety, are
confounded and lost in the military crowd. The colonel sets his whole
regiment in motion; and mounted on a mettlesome charger, frisks and
fidgets, and capers, and plunges in front, to the great entertainment of
the multitude, and the great hazard of himself and his neighbors. Having
displayed himself, his trappings, his horse, and his horsemanship, he at
length arrives at the place of general rendezvous, blessed with the
universal admiration of his countrywomen. I should perhaps mention a
squadron of hardy veterans, most of whom have seen a deal of service
during the nineteen or twenty years of their experience, and who, most
gorgeously equipped in tight green jackets and breeches, trot and amble,
and gallop and scamper like little devils through every street and nook
and corner and poke-hole of the city, to the great dread of all old
people, and sage matrons with young children. This is truly sublime!
this is what I call making a mountain out of a molehill. O, my friend,
on what a great scale is everything done in this country. It is in the
style of the wandering Arabs of the desert _El-tih_. Is a village to be
attacked, or a hamlet to be plundered, the whole desert, for weeks
beforehand, is in a buzz: such marching and counter-marching, ere they
can concentrate their ragged forces! and the consequence is, that before
they can bring their troops into action, the whole enterprise is blown.
The army being all happily collected on the Battery, though, perhaps,
two hours after the time appointed, it is now the turn of the bashaw
with two tails to distinguish himself. Ambition, my friend, is implanted
alike in every heart, it pervades each bosom, from the bashaw to the
drum-major. This is a sage truism, and I trust, therefore, it will not
be disputed. The bashaw, fired with that thirst for glory, inseparable
from the noble mind, is anxious to reap a full share of the laurels of
the day and bear off his portion of female plunder. The drums beat, the
fifes whistle, the standards wave proudly in the air. The signal is
given! thunder roars the cannon! away goes the bashaw, and away go the
tails! The review finished, evolutions and military maneuvers are
generally dispensed with for three excellent reasons: first, because the
army knows very little about them; second, because, as the country has
determined to remain always at peace, there is no necessity for them to
know anything about them; and third, as it is growing late, the bashaw
must dispatch, or it will be too dark for him to get his quota of the
plunder. He, of course, orders the whole army to march; and now, my
friend, now comes the tug of war, now is the city completely sacked.
Open fly the Battery gates, forth sallies the bashaw with his two tails,
surrounded by a shouting body-guard of boys and negroes! then pour forth
his legions, potent as the pismires of the desert! the customary
salutations of the country commence—these tokens of joy and admiration
which so much annoyed me on first landing; the air is darkened with old
hats, shoes, and dead cats; they fly in showers like the arrows of the
Parthians. The soldiers, no ways disheartened, like the intrepid
followers of Leonidas, march gallantly under their shade. On they push,
splash, dash, mud or no mud. Down one lane, up another; the martial
music resounds through every street; the fair ones throng to their
windows; the soldiers look every way but straight forward. “Carry arms!”
cries the bashaw—“tan-ta ra-ra,” brays the trumpet—“rub-a-dub,” roars
the drum—“hurraw,” shout the ragamuffins. The bashaw smiles with
exultation—every fag-rag feels himself a hero—“none but the brave
deserves the fair!” Head of the immortal Amrou, on what a great scale is
everything in this country!
Ay, but you’ll say, is not this unfair that the officers should share
all the sports while the privates undergo all the fatigue? truly, my
friend, I indulged the same idea, and pitied from my heart the poor
fellows who had to drabble through the mud and the mire, toiling under
ponderous cocked hats, which seemed as unwieldy and cumbrous as the
shell which the snail lumbers along on his back. I soon found out,
however, that they have their quantum of notoriety. As soon as the army
is dismissed, the city swarms with little scouting parties, who fire off
their guns at every corner, to the great delight of all the women and
children in their vicinity; and woe unto any dog, or pig, or hog, that
falls in the way of these magnanimous warriors; they are shown no
quarter. Every gentle swain repairs to pass the evening at the feet of
his dulcinea, to play, “the soldier tired of war’s alarms,” and to
captivate her with the glare of his regimentals; excepting some
ambitious heroes who strut to the theatre, flame away in the front
boxes, and hector every old apple-woman in the lobbies.
Such, my friend, is the gigantic genius of this nation, and its faculty
for swelling up nothings into importance. Our bashaw of Tripoli will
review his troops of some thousands, by an early hour in the morning.
Here a review of six hundred men is made the mighty work of a day! with
us a bashaw of two tails is never appointed to a command of less than
ten thousand men; but here we behold every grade, from the bashaw down
to the drum-major, in a force of less than one-tenth of the number. By
the beard of Mahomet! but everything here is indeed on a great scale.
BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.
I was not a little surprised the other morning at a request from Will
Wizard that I would accompany him that evening to Mrs. ——’s ball. The
request was simple enough in itself, it was only singular as coming from
Will; of all my acquaintance, Wizard is the least calculated and
disposed for the society of ladies—not that he dislikes their company;
on the contrary, like every man of pith and marrow, he is a professed
admirer of the sex; and had he been born a poet, would undoubtedly have
bespattered and berhymed some hard-named goddess, until she became as
famous as Petrarch’s Laura, or Waller’s Sacharissa; but Will is such a
confounded bungler at a bow, has so many odd bachelor habits, and finds
it so troublesome to be gallant, that he generally prefers smoking his
cigar and telling his stories among cronies of his own gender—and
thundering long stories they are, let me tell you; set Will once a-going
about China or Crim Tartary, or the Hottentots, and Heaven help the poor
victim who has to endure his prolixity; he might better be tied to the
tail of a jack-o’-lantern. In one word—Will talks like a traveller.
Being well acquainted with his character, I was the more alarmed at his
inclination to visit a party; since he has often assured me, that he
considered it as equivalent to being stuck up for three hours in a steam
engine. I even wondered how he had received an invitation; this he soon
accounted for. It seems Will, on his last arrival from Canton, had made
a present of a case of tea to a lady for whom he had once entertained a
sneaking kindness when at grammar school; and she in return had invited
him to come and drink some of it; a cheap way enough of paying off
little obligations. I readily acceded to Will’s proposition, expecting
much entertainment from his eccentric remarks; and as he has been absent
some few years, I anticipated his surprise at the splendor and elegance
of a modern rout.
On calling for Will in the evening, I found him full dressed, waiting
for me. I contemplated him with absolute dismay. As he still retained a
spark of regard for the lady who once reigned in his affections, he had
been at unusual pains in decorating his person, and broke upon my sight
arrayed in the true style that prevailed among our beaux some years ago.
His hair was turned up and tufted at the top, frizzled out at the ears,
a profusion of powder puffed over the whole, and a long plaited club
swung gracefully from shoulder to shoulder, describing a pleasing
semicircle of powder and pomatum. His claret-colored coat was decorated
with a profusion of gilt buttons, and reached to his calves. His white
cassimere small clothes were so tight that he seemed to have grown up in
them; and his ponderous legs, which are the thickest part of his body,
were beautifully clothed in sky-blue silk stockings, once considered so
becoming. But above all, he prided himself upon his waistcoat of China
silk, which might almost have served a good housewife for a shortgown;
and he boasted that the roses and tulips upon it were the work of
_Nang-Fou_, daughter of the great _Chin-Chin-Fou_, who had fallen in
love with the graces of his person, and sent it to him as a parting
present; he assured me she was a remarkable beauty, with sweet obliquity
of eyes, and a foot no larger than the thumb of an alderman; he then
dilated most copiously on his silver-sprigged dickey, which he assured
me was quite the rage among the dashing young mandarins of Canton.
I hold it an ill-natured office to put any man out of conceit with
himself; so, though I would willingly have made a little alteration in
my friend Wizard’s picturesque costume, yet I politely complimented him
on his rakish appearance.
On entering the room I kept a good look-out on Will, expecting to see
him exhibit signs of surprise; but he is one of those knowing fellows
who are never surprised at anything, or at least will never acknowledge
it. He took his stand in the middle of the floor, playing with his great
steel watch-chain; and looking round on the company, the furniture, and
the pictures, with the air of a man “who has seen d—d finer things in
his time;” and to my utter confusion and dismay, I saw him coolly pull
out his villainous old japanned tobacco-box, ornamented with a bottle, a
pipe, and a scurvy motto, and help himself to a quid in face of all the
company.
I knew it was all in vain to find fault with a fellow of Will’s Socratic
turn, who is never to be put out of humor with himself; so, after he had
given his box its prescriptive rap and returned it to his pocket, I drew
him into a corner where we might observe the company without being
prominent objects ourselves.
“And pray who is that stylish figure,” said Will, “who blazes away in
red, like a volcano, and who seems wrapped in flames like a fiery
dragon?” “That,” cried I, “is Miss Laurella Dashaway—she is the highest
flash of the ton—has much whim and more eccentricity, and has reduced
many an unhappy gentleman to stupidity by her charms; you see she holds
out the red flag in token of ‘no quarter.’” “Then keep me safe out of
the sphere of her attractions,” cried Will, “I would not e’en come in
contact with her train, lest it should scorch me like the tail of a
comet. But who, I beg of you, is that amiable youth who is handing a
young lady, and at the same time contemplating his sweet person in a
mirror as he passes?” “His name,” said I, “is Billy Dimple; he is a
universal smiler, and would travel from Dan to Beersheba and smile on
everybody as he passed. Dimple is a slave to the ladies—a hero at
tea-parties, and is famous at the _pirouette_ and the pigeon-wing; a
fiddle-stick is his idol, and a dance his elysium.” “A very pretty young
gentleman, truly,” cried Wizard, “he reminds me of a contemporary beau
at Hayti. You must know that the magnanimous Dessalines gave a great
ball to his court one fine sultry summer’s evening; Dessy and me were
great cronies—hand and glove—one of the most condescending great men I
ever knew. Such a display of black and yellow beauties! such a show of
Madras handkerchiefs, red beads, cocks’ tails and peacocks’ feathers!—it
was, as here, who should wear the highest top-knot, drag the longest
tails, or exhibit the greatest variety of combs, colors, and gewgaws. In
the middle of the rout, when all was buzz, slip-slop, crack, and
perfume, who should enter but Tucky Squash! The yellow beauties blushed
blue, and the black ones blushed as red as they could, with pleasure;
and there was a universal agitation of fans; every eye brightened and
whitened to see Tucky; for he was the pride of the court, the pink of
courtesy, the mirror of fashion, the adoration of all the sable fair
ones of Hayti. Such breadth of nose, such exuberance of lip! his shins
had the true cucumber curve; his face in dancing shone like a kettle;
and provided you kept to windward of him in summer, I do not know a
sweeter youth in all Hayti than Tucky Squash. When he laughed, there
appeared from ear to ear a chevaux-de-frise of teeth, that rivaled the
shark’s in whiteness; he could whistle like a northwester; play on a
three-stringed fiddle like Apollo; and as to dancing no Long Island
negro could shuffle you ‘double trouble,’ ‘hoe corn and dig potatoes’
more scientifically—in short, he was a second Lothario. And the dusky
nymphs of Hayti, one and all, declared him a perpetual Adonis. Tucky
walked about, whistling to himself, without regarding anybody; and his
_nonchalance_ was irresistible.”
I found Will had got neck and heels into one of his travellers stories;
and there is no knowing how far he would have run his parallel between
Billy Dimple and Tucky Squash, had not the music struck up from an
adjoining apartment and summoned the company to a dance. The sound
seemed to have an inspiring effect on honest Will, and he procured the
hand of an old acquaintance for a country dance. It happened to be the
fashionable one of “the Devil among the Tailors,” which is so
vociferously demanded at every ball and assembly; and many a torn gown,
and many an unfortunate toe did rue the dancing of that night; for Will
thundered down the dance like a coach and six, sometimes right,
sometimes wrong; now running over half a score of little Frenchmen, and
now making sad inroads into ladies’ cobweb muslins and spangled tails.
As every part of Will’s body partook of the exertion, he shook from his
capacious head such volumes of powder that, like pious Æneas on his
first interview with Queen Dido, he might be said to have been enveloped
in a cloud. Nor was Will’s partner an insignificant figure in the scene;
she was a young lady of most voluminous proportions, that quivered at
every skip; and being braced up in the fashionable style, with
whalebone, stay-tape, and buckram, looked like an apple-pudding tied in
the middle; or, taking her flaming dress into consideration, like a bed
and bolsters rolled up in a suit of red curtains. The dance finished, I
would gladly have taken Will off; but no, he was now in one of his happy
moods, and there was no doing anything with him. He insisted on my
introducing him to Miss Sophy Sparkle, a young lady unrivaled for
playful wit and innocent vivacity, and who like a brilliant adds lustre
to the front of fashion. I accordingly presented him to her, and began a
conversation in which, I thought, he might take a share; but no such
thing. Will took his stand beside her, straddling like a Colossus, with
his hands in his pockets, and an air of the most profound attention; nor
did he pretend to open his lips for some time, until, upon some lively
sally of hers, he electrified the whole company with a most intolerable
burst of laughter. What was to be done with such an incorrigible fellow?
To add to my distress, the first word he spoke was to tell Miss Sparkle
that something she had said reminded him of a circumstance that happened
to him in China; and at it he went in the true traveller style;
described the Chinese mode of eating rice with chop-sticks; entered into
a long eulogium on the succulent qualities of boiled bird’s nests; and I
made my escape at the very moment when he was on the point of squatting
down on the floor, to show how the little Chinese _Joshes_ sit
cross-legged.
TO THE LADIES.
FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.
Though jogging down the hill of life,
Without the comfort of a wife;
And though I ne’er a helpmate chose,
To stock my house and mend my hose;
With care my person to adorn;
And spruce me up on Sunday morn;
Still do I love the gentle sex,
And still with cares my brain perplex.
To keep the fair ones of the age
Unsullied as the spotless page;
All pure, all simple, all refined,
The sweetest solace of mankind.
I hate the loose insidious jest
To beauty’s modest ear addrest,
And hold that frowns should never fail
To check each smooth, but fulsome tale;
But he whose impious pen should dare
Invade the morals of the fair;
To taint that purity divine
Which should each female heart enshrine;
Though soft his vicious strains should swell,
As those which erst from Gabriel fell,
Should yet be held aloft to shame,
And foul dishonor shade his name.
Judge then, my friends, of my surprise,
The ire that kindled in my eyes,
When I relate, that t’other day
I went a morning call to pay,
On two young nieces, just come down
To take the polish of the town:
By which I mean no more or less
Than _à la Française_ to undress;
To whirl the modest waltz’s rounds,
Taught by Duport for snug ten pounds;
To thump and thunder through a song,
Play _fortes_ soft and _dolces_ strong:
Exhibit loud _piano_ feats,
Caught from that crotchet-hero, Meetz;
To drive the rose-bloom from the face,
And fix the lily in its place;
To doff the white, and in its stead
To bounce about in brazen red.
While in the parlor I delay’d
Till they their persons had array’d,
A dapper volume caught my eye,
That on the window chanced to lie:
A book’s a friend—I always choose
To turn its pages and peruse;
It proved those poems known to fame
For praising every cyprian dame;
The bantlings of a dapper youth,
Renown’d for gratitude and truth;
A little pest, hight Tommy Moore,
Who hopp’d and skipp’d our country o’er;
Who sipp’d our tea and lived on sops,
Revel’d on syllabubs and slops,
And when his brain, of cobweb fine,
Was fuddled with five drops of wine,
Would all his puny loves rehearse,
And many a maid debauch—in verse.
Surprised to meet in open view,
A book of such lascivious hue,
I chid my nieces, but they say
’Tis all the passion of the day;
That many a fashionable belle
Will with enraptured accents dwell
On the sweet _morceau_ she has found
In this delicious, curst compound!
Soft do the tinkling numbers roll,
And lure to vice the unthinking soul;
They tempt by softer sounds away,
They lead entranced the heart astray;
And Satan’s doctrine sweetly sing,
As with a seraph’s heavenly string.
Such sounds, so good old Homer sung,
Once warbled from the Siren’s tongue;
Sweet melting tones were heard to pour
Along Ausonia’s sun-gilt shore;
Seductive strains in ether float,
And every wild, deceitful note
That could the yielding heart assail,
Were wafted on the breathing gale;
And every gentle accent bland,
To tempt Ulysses to their strand.
And can it be this book so base,
Is laid on every window-case?
O! fair ones, if you will profane
Those breasts where heaven itself should reign;
And throw those pure recesses wide,
Where peace and virtue should reside,
To let the holy pile admit
A guest unhallowed and unfit;
Pray, like the frail ones of the night,
Who hide their wanderings from the light,
So let your errors secret be,
And hide, at least, your fault from me;
Seek some by-corner to explore
The smooth polluted pages o’er:
There drink the insidious poison in,
There silly nurse your souls for sin;
And while that purity you blight,
Which stamps you messengers of light,
And sap those mounds the gods bestow,
To keep you spotless here below;
Still, in compassion to our race,
Who joy, not only in the face,
But in that more exalted part,
The sacred temple of the heart;
O! hide forever from our view
The fatal mischief you pursue;
Let MEN your praises still exalt,
And none but ANGELS mourn your fault.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NO. VI.—FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1807.
FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.
The Cockloft family, of which I have made such frequent mention, is of
great antiquity, if there be any truth in the genealogical tree which
hangs up in my cousin’s library. They trace their descent from a
celebrated Roman knight, cousin to the progenitor of his majesty of
Britain, who left his native country on occasion of some disgust, and
coming into Wales, became a great favorite of Prince Madoc, and
accompanied that famous Argonaut in the voyage which ended in the
discovery of this continent. Though a member of the family, I have
sometimes ventured to doubt the authenticity of this portion of their
annals, to the great vexation of cousin Christopher, who is looked up to
as the head of our house, and who, though as orthodox as a bishop, would
sooner give up the whole decalogue than lop off a single limb of the
family tree. From time immemorial, it has been the rule for the
Cocklofts to marry one of their own name; and, as they always bred like
rabbits, the family has increased and multiplied like that of Adam and
Eve. In truth, their number is almost incredible; and you can hardly go
into any part of the country without starting a warren of genuine
Cocklofts. Every person of the least observation or experience must have
observed that where this practice of marrying cousins, and second
cousins, prevails in a family every member, in the course of a few
generations, becomes queer, humorous, and original; as much
distinguished from the common race of mongrels as if he was of a
different species. This has happened in our family, and particularly in
that branch of it of which Mr. Christopher Cockloft, or, to do him
justice, Mr. Christopher Cockloft, Esq., is the head. Christopher is, in
fact, the only married man of the name who resides in town; his family
is small, having lost most of his children, when young, by the excessive
care he took to bring them up like vegetables. This was one of his first
whimwhams, and a confounded one it was, as his children might have told,
had they not fallen victims to this experiment before they could talk.
He had got from some quack philosopher or other a notion that there was
a complete analogy between children and plants, and that they ought to
be both reared alike. Accordingly he sprinkled them every morning with
water; laid them out in the sun, as he did his geraniums; and, if the
season was remarkably dry, repeated this wise experiment three or four
times of a morning. The consequence was, that the poor little souls died
one after the other, except Jeremy and his two sisters; who, to be sure,
are a trio of as odd, runty, mummy-looking originals as ever Hogarth
fancied in his most happy moments. Mrs. Cockloft, the larger if not the
better half of my cousin, often remonstrated against this vegetable
theory; and even brought the parson of the parish, in which my cousin’s
country house is situated, to her aid; but in vain: Christopher
persisted, and attributed the failure of his plan to its not having been
exactly conformed to. As I have mentioned Mrs. Cockloft, I may as well
say a little more about her while I am in the humor. She is a lady of
wonderful notability, a warm admirer of shining mahogany, clean hearths,
and her husband, who she considers the wisest man in the world, bating
Will Wizard and the parson of our parish, the last of whom is her oracle
on all occasions. She goes constantly to church every Sunday and
Saint’s-day; and insists upon it that no man is entitled to ascend a
pulpit unless he has been ordained by a bishop: nay, so far does she
carry her orthodoxy, that all the argument in the world will never
persuade her that a Presbyterian or Baptist, or even a Calvinist, has
any possible chance of going to Heaven. Above everything else, however,
she abhors paganism; can scarcely refrain from laying violent hands on a
pantheon when she meets with it; and was very nigh going into hysterics
when my cousin insisted one of his boys should be christened after our
laureate, because the parson of the parish had told her that Pindar was
the name of a pagan writer, famous for his love of boxing-matches,
wrestling, and horse-racing. To sum up all her qualifications in the
shortest possible way, Mrs. Cockloft is, in the true sense of the
phrase, a good sort of woman; and I often congratulate my cousin on
possessing her. The rest of the family consists of Jeremy Cockloft, the
younger, who has already been mentioned, and the two Miss Cocklofts, or
rather the young ladies, as they have been called by the servants time
out of mind; not that they are really young, the younger being somewhat
on the shady side of thirty, but it has ever been the custom to call
every member of the family young under fifty. In the southeast corner of
the house I hold quiet possession of an old-fashioned apartment, where
myself and my elbow-chair are suffered to amuse ourselves undisturbed,
save at meal-times. This apartment old Cockloft has facetiously
denominated Cousin Launce’s Paradise; and the good old gentleman has two
or three favorite jokes about it, which are served up as regularly as
the standing family dish of beef-steaks and onions, which every day
maintains its station at the foot of the table, in defiance of mutton,
poultry, or even venison itself.
Though the family is apparently small, yet, like most old establishments
of the kind, it does not want for honorary members. It is the city
rendezvous of the Cocklofts; and we are continually enlivened by the
company of half a score of uncles, aunts, and cousins, in the fortieth
remove, from all parts of the country, who profess a wonderful regard
for Cousin Christopher, and overwhelm every member of his household,
down to the cook in the kitchen, with their attentions. We have for
three weeks past been greeted with the company of two worthy old
spinsters, who came down from the country to settle a lawsuit. They have
done little else but retail stories of their village neighbors, knit
stockings, and take snuff all the time they have been here; the whole
family are bewildered with churchyard tales of sheeted ghosts, white
horses without heads, and with large goggle eyes in their buttocks; and
not one of the old servants dare budge an inch after dark without a
numerous company at his heels. My cousin’s visitors, however, always
return his hospitality with due gratitude, and now and then remind him
of their fraternal regard, by a present of a pot of apple sweetmeats, or
a barrel of sour cider at Christmas. Jeremy displays himself to great
advantage among his country relations, who all think him a prodigy, and
often stand astounded, in “gaping wonderment,” at his natural
philosophy. He lately frightened a simple old uncle almost out of his
wits, by giving it as his opinion that the earth would one day be
scorched to ashes by the eccentric gambols of the famous comet, so much
talked of; and positively asserted that this world revolved round the
sun, and that the moon was certainly inhabited.
The family mansion bears equal marks of antiquity with its inhabitants.
As the Cocklofts are remarkable for their attachment to everything that
has remained long in the family, they are bigoted toward their old
edifice, and I dare say would sooner have it crumble about their ears
than abandon it. The consequence is, it has been so patched up and
repaired, that it has become as full of whims and oddities as its
tenants; requires to be nursed and humored like a gouty old codger of an
alderman, and reminds one of the famous ship in which a certain admiral
circumnavigated the globe, which was so patched and timbered, in order
to preserve so great a curiosity, that at length not a particle of the
original remained. Whenever the wind blows, the old mansion makes a most
perilous groaning; and every storm is sure to make a day’s work for the
carpenter, who attends upon it as regularly as the family physician.
This predilection for everything that has been long in the family shows
itself in every particular. The domestics are all grown gray in the
service of our house. We have a little, old, crusty, gray-headed negro,
who has lived through two or three generations of the Cocklofts, and of
course has become a personage of no little importance in the household.
He calls all the family by their Christian names; tells long stories
about how he dandled them on his knee when they were children; and is a
complete Cockloft chronicle for the last seventy years. The family
carriage was made in the last French war, and the old horses were most
indubitably foaled in Noah’s ark: resembling marvelously, in gravity of
demeanor, those sober animals which may be seen any day of the year in
the streets of Philadelphia walking their snail’s pace, a dozen in a
row, and harmoniously jingling their bells. Whimwhams are the
inheritance of the Cocklofts, and every member of the household is a
humorist _sui generis_, from the master down to the footman. The very
cats and dogs are humorists; and we have a little runty scoundrel of a
cur, who whenever the church bells ring, will run to the street door,
turn up his nose in the wind, and howl most piteously. Jeremy insists
that this is owing to a peculiar delicacy in the organization of his
ears, and supports his position by many learned arguments which nobody
can understand; but I am of opinion that it is a mere Cockloft whimwham,
which the little cur indulges, being descended from a race of dogs which
has flourished in the family ever since the time of my grandfather. A
propensity to save everything that bears the stamp of family antiquity
has accumulated an abundance of trumpery and rubbish with which the
house is encumbered from the cellar to the garret; and every room, and
closet, and corner is crammed with three-legged chairs, clocks without
hands, swords without scabbards, cocked hats, broken candlesticks, and
looking-glasses with frames carved into fantastic shapes of feathered
sheep, woolly birds, and other animals that have no name except in books
of heraldry. The ponderous mahogany chairs in the parlors are of such
unwieldy proportions that it is quite a serious undertaking to gallant
one of them across the room, and sometimes make a most equivocal noise
when you sit down in a hurry; the mantel-piece is decorated with little
lacquered earthen shepherdesses, some of which are without toes, and
others without noses; and the fire-place is garnished out with Dutch
tiles, exhibiting a great variety of Scripture pieces, which my good old
soul of a cousin takes infinite delight in explaining. Poor Jeremy hates
them as he does poison; for, while a younker, he was obliged by his
mother to learn the history of a tile every Sunday morning before she
would permit him to join his playmates; this was a terrible affair for
Jeremy, who, by the time he had learned the last, had forgotten the
first, and was obliged to begin again. He assured me the other day, with
a round college oath, that if the old house stood out till he inherited
it, he would have these tiles taken out, and ground into powder, for the
perfect hatred he bore them.
My cousin Christopher enjoys unlimited authority in the mansion of his
forefathers; he is truly what may be termed a hearty old blade; has a
florid, sunshine countenance; and if you will only praise his wine and
laugh at his long stories, himself and his house are heartily at your
service. The first condition is indeed easily complied with; for, to
tell the truth, his wine is excellent; but his stories, being not of the
best, and often repeated, are apt to create a disposition to yawn—being,
in addition to their other qualities, most unreasonably long. His
prolixity is the more afflicting to me, since I have all his stories by
heart; and when he enters upon one, it reminds me of Newark causeway,
where the traveller sees the end at the distance of several miles. To
the great misfortune of all his acquaintance, Cousin Cockloft is blest
with a most provokingly retentive memory; and can give day and date, and
name, and age, and circumstance, with the most unfeeling precision.
These, however, are but trivial foibles, forgotten, or remembered only
with a kind of tender, respectful pity, by those who know with what a
rich, redundant harvest of kindness and generosity his heart is stored.
It would delight you to see with what social gladness he welcomes a
visitor into his house; and the poorest man that enters his door never
leaves it without a cordial invitation to sit down, and drink a glass of
wine. By the honest farmers round his country-seat he is looked up to
with love and reverence; they never pass him by without his inquiring
after the welfare of their families, and receiving a cordial shake of
his liberal hand. There are but two classes of people who are thrown out
of the reach of his hospitality, and these are Frenchmen and Democrats.
The old gentleman considers it treason against the majesty of good
breeding to speak to any visitor with his hat on; but the moment a
Democrat enters his door, he forthwith bids his man Pompey bring his
hat, puts it on his head, and salutes him with an appalling “Well, sir,
what do you want of me?”
He has a profound contempt for Frenchmen, and firmly believes that they
eat nothing but frogs and soupe-maigre in their own country. This
unlucky prejudice is partly owing to my great-aunt Pamela having been
many years ago run away with by a French count, who turned out to be the
son of a generation of barbers; and partly to a little vivid spark of
toryism which burns in a secret corner of his heart. He was a loyal
subject of the crown, has hardly yet recovered the shock of
independence; and, though he does not care to own it, always does honor
to his majesty’s birthday, by inviting a few cavaliers, like himself, to
dinner, and gracing his table with more than ordinary festivity. If by
chance the Revolution is mentioned before him, my cousin shakes his
head; and you may see, if you take good note, a lurking smile of
contempt in the corner of his eye which marks a decided disapprobation
of the sound. He once, in the fullness of his heart, observed to me that
green peas were a month later than they were under the old government.
But the most eccentric manifestation of loyalty he ever gave was making
a voyage to Halifax for no other reason under heaven but to hear his
majesty prayed for in church, as he used to be here formerly. This he
never could be brought fairly to acknowledge; but it is a certain fact,
I assure you. It is not a little singular that a person so much given to
long story-telling as my cousin, should take a liking to another of the
same character; but so it is with the old gentleman. His prime favorite
and companion is Will Wizard, who is almost a member of the family; and
will sit before the fire, with his feet on the massy andirons, and smoke
his cigar, and screw his phiz, and spin away tremendous long stories of
his travels, for a whole evening, to the great delight of the old
gentleman and lady, and especially of the young ladies, who, like
Desdemona, do “seriously incline,” and listen to him with innumerable “O
dears,” “Is it possibles,” “Goody graciouses,” and look upon him as a
second Sinbad the sailor.
The Misses Cockloft, whose pardon I crave for not having particularly
introduced them before, are a pair of delectable damsels, who, having
purloined and locked up the family Bible, pass for just what age they
please to plead guilty to. Barbara, the eldest, has long since resigned
the character of a belle, and adopted that staid, sober, demure,
snuff-taking air becoming her years and discretion. She is a
good-natured soul, whom I never saw in a passion but once, and that was
occasioned by seeing an old favorite beau of hers kiss the hand of a
pretty, blooming girl; and, in truth, she only got angry because, as she
very properly said, it was spoiling the child. Her sister Margery, or
Maggie, as she is familiarly termed, seemed disposed to maintain her
post as a belle, until a few months since; when accidentally hearing a
gentleman observe that she broke very fast, she suddenly left off going
to the assembly, took a cat into high favor, and began to rail at the
forward pertness of young misses. From that moment I set her down for an
old maid; and so she is, “by the hand of my body.” The young ladies are
still visited by some half dozen of veteran beaux, who grew and
flourished in the _haut ton_, when the Miss Cocklofts were quite
children; but have been brushed rather rudely by the hand of time, who,
to say the truth, can do almost anything but make people young. They
are, notwithstanding, still warm candidates for female favor; look
venerably tender, and repeat over and over the same honeyed speeches and
sugared sentiments to the little belles that they poured so profusely
into the ears of their mothers. I beg leave here to give notice that by
this sketch I mean no reflection on old bachelors; on the contrary, I
hold that next to a fine lady, the _ne plus ultra_, an old bachelor to
be the most charming being upon earth; inasmuch as by living in “single
blessedness,” he of course does just as he pleases; and if he has any
genius, must acquire a plentiful stock of whims, and oddities, and
whalebone habits; without which I esteem a man to be mere beef without
mustard—good for nothing at all but to run on errands for ladies, take
boxes at the theatre, and act the part of a screen at tea-parties, or a
walking-stick in the streets. I merely speak of these old boys who
infest public walks, pounce upon ladies from every corner of the street,
and worry, and frisk, and amble, and caper before, behind, and round
about the fashionable belles, like old ponies in a pasture, striving to
supply the absence of youthful whim and hilarity, by grimaces and grins,
and artificial vivacity. I have sometimes seen one of these “reverend
youths” endeavoring to elevate his wintry passions into something like
love, by basking in the sunshine of beauty; and it did remind me of an
old moth, attempting to fly through a pane of glass toward a light,
without ever approaching near enough to warm itself, or scorch its
wings.
Never, I firmly believe, did there exist a family that went more by
tangents than the Cocklofts. Everything is governed by whim; and if one
member starts a new freak, away all the rest follow on like wild geese
in a string. As the family, the servants, the horses, cats, and dogs
have all grown old together, they have accommodated themselves to each
other’s habits completely; and though every body of them is full of odd
points, angles, rhomboids, and ins and outs, yet some how or other they
harmonize together like so many straight lines; and it is truly a
grateful and refreshing sight to see them agree so well. Should one,
however, get out of tune, it is like a cracked fiddle, the whole concern
is ajar; you perceive a cloud over every brow in the house and even the
old chairs seem to creak, affetuoso. If my cousin, as he is rather apt
to do, betray any symptoms of vexation or uneasiness, no matter about
what, he is worried to death with inquiries, which answer no other end
but to demonstrate the good will of the inquirer, and put him in a
passion; for everybody knows how provoking it is to be cut short in a
fit of the blues, by an impertinent question about “what is the matter?”
when a man can’t tell himself. I remember a few months ago the old
gentleman came home in quite a squall; kicked poor Cæsar the mastiff,
out of his way, as he came through the hall, threw his hat on the table
with most violent emphasis, and pulling out his box, took three huge
pinches of snuff, and threw a fourth into the cat’s eyes as he sat
purring his astonishment at the fireside. This was enough to set the
body politic going; Mrs. Cockloft began “my dearing” it as fast as
tongue could move; the young ladies took each a stand at an elbow of his
chair; Jeremy marshaled in the rear; the servants came tumbling in; the
mastiff put up an inquiring nose; and even grimalkin, after he had
cleaned his whiskers and finished sneezing, discovered indubitable signs
of sympathy. After the most affectionate inquiries on all sides, it
turned out that my cousin, in crossing the street, had got his silk
stockings bespattered with mud by a coach, which, it seems, belonged to
a dashing gentleman who had formerly supplied the family with hot rolls
and muffins! Mrs. Cockloft thereupon turned up her eyes, and the young
ladies their noses; and it would have edified a whole congregation to
hear the conversation which took place concerning the insolence of
upstarts, and the vulgarity of would-be gentlemen and ladies, who strive
to emerge from low life by dashing about in carriages to pay a visit two
doors off; giving parties to people who laugh at them, and cutting all
their old friends.
THEATRICS.
BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.
I went a few evenings since to the theatre, accompanied by my friend
’Sbidlikens, the cockney, who is a man deeply read in the history of
Cinderella, Valentine and Orson, Blue Beard, and all those recondite
works so necessary to enable a man to understand the modern drama.
’Sbidlikens is one of those intolerable fellows who will never be
pleased with anything until he has turned and twisted it divers ways, to
see if it corresponds with his notions of congruity; and as he is none
of the quickest in his ratiocinations, he will sometimes come out with
his approbation, when everybody else has forgotten the cause which
excited it. ’Sbidlikens is, moreover, a great critic, for he finds fault
with everything; this being what I understand by modern criticism. He,
however, is pleased to acknowledge that our theatre is not so
despicable, all things considered; and really thinks Cooper one of our
best actors. The play was “Othello” and to speak my mind freely, I think
I have seen it performed much worse in my time. The actors, I firmly
believe, did their best; and whenever this is the case, no man has a
right to find fault with them, in my opinion. Little Rutherford, the
Roscius of the Philadelphia theatre, looked as big as possible; and what
he wanted in size he made up in frowning. I like frowning in tragedy;
and if a man but keeps his forehead in proper wrinkle, talks big, and
takes long strides on the stage, I always set him down as a great
tragedian; and so does my friend ’Sbidlikens.
Before the first act was over, ’Sbidlikens began to flourish his
critical wooden sword like a harlequin. He first found fault with Cooper
for not having made himself as black as a negro, “for,” said he, “that
Othello was an arrant black, appears from several expressions of the
play; as for instance, ‘thick lips,’ ‘sooty bosom,’ and a variety of
others. I am inclined to think,” continued he, “that Othello was an
Egyptian by birth, from the circumstance of the handkerchief given to
his mother by a native of that country; and, if so, he certainly was as
black as my hat; for Herodotus has told us, that the Egyptians had flat
noses and frizzled hair—a clear proof that they were all negroes.” He
did not confine his strictures to this single error of the actor, but
went on to run him down in toto. In this he was seconded by a red-hot
Philadelphian, who proved by a string of most eloquent logical puns,
that Fennel was unquestionably in every respect a better actor than
Cooper. I knew it was in vain to contend with them, since I recollected
a most obstinate trial of skill these two great _Roscii_ had last spring
in Philadelphia. Cooper brandished his blood-stained dagger at the
theatre—Fennel flourished his snuff-box and shook his wig at the Lyceum,
and the unfortunate Philadelphians were a long time at a loss to decide
which deserved the palm. The literati were inclined to give it to
Cooper, because his name was the most fruitful in puns; but then, on the
other side, it was contended that Fennel was the best Greek scholar.
Scarcely was the town of Strasburgh in a greater hubbub about the
courteous stranger’s nose; and it was well that the doctors of the
University did not get into the dispute, else it might have became a
battle of folios. At length, after much excellent argument had been
expended on both sides, recourse was had to Cocker’s Arithmetic and a
carpenter’s rule; the rival candidates were both measured by one of
their most steady-handed critics, and by the most exact measurement it
was proved that Mr. Fennel was the greater actor by three inches and a
quarter. Since this demonstration of inferiority, Cooper has never been
able to hold up his head in Philadelphia.
In order to change a conversation in which my favorite suffered so much,
I made some inquiries of the Philadelphian concerning the two heroes of
his theatre, Wood and Cain; but I had scarcely mentioned their names,
when, whack! he threw a whole handful of puns in my face; ’twas like a
bowl of cold water. I turned on my heel, had recourse to my tobacco-box,
and said no more about Wood and Cain; nor will I ever more, if I can
help it, mention their names in the presence of a Philadelphian. Would
that they could leave off punning! for I love every soul of them, with a
cordial affection, warm as their own generous hearts, and boundless as
their hospitality.
During the performance, I kept an eye on the countenance of my friend,
the cockney; because, having come all the way from England, and having
seen Kemble once, on a visit which he made from the button-manufactory
to _Lunnun_, I thought his phiz might serve as a kind of thermometer to
direct my manifestations of applause or disapprobation. I might as well
have looked at the back side of his head; for I could not, with all my
peering, perceive by his features that he was pleased with
anything—except himself. His hat was twitched a little on one side, as
much as to say, “Demme, I’m your sorts!” he was sucking the end of a
little stick; he was a “gemman” from head to foot; but as to his face,
there was no more expression in it than in the face of a Chinese lady on
a tea-cup. On Cooper’s giving one of his gunpowder explosions of
passion, I exclaimed, “Fine, very fine!” “Pardon me,” said my friend
’Sbidlikens, “this is damnable!—the gesture, my dear sir—only look at
the gesture! how horrible! do you not observe that the actor slaps his
forehead, whereas, the passion not having arrived at the proper height,
he should only have slapped his—pocket-flap? this figure of rhetoric is
a most important stage-trick, and the proper management of it is what
peculiarly distinguishes the great actor from the mere plodding
mechanical buffoon. Different degrees of passion require different
slaps, which we critics have reduced to a perfect manual, improving upon
the principle adopted by Frederic of Prussia, by deciding that an actor,
like a soldier, is a mere machine; as thus—the actor, for a minor burst
of passion, merely slaps his pocket-hole; good! for a major burst, he
slaps his breast; very good! but for a burst maximus, he whacks away at
his forehead, like a brave fellow; this is excellent; nothing can be
finer than an exit, slapping the forehead from one end of the stage to
the other.” “Except,” replied I, “one of those slaps on the breast,
which I have sometimes admired in some of our fat heroes and heroines,
which make their whole body shake and quiver like a pyramid of jelly.”
The Philadelphian had listened to this conversation with profound
attention, and appeared delighted with ’Sbidlikens’ mechanical
strictures; ’twas natural enough in a man who chose an actor as he would
a grenadier. He took the opportunity of a pause to enter into a long
conversation with my friend; and was receiving a prodigious fund of
information concerning the true mode of emphasizing conjunctions,
shifting scenes, snuffing candles, and making thunder and lightning,
better than you can get every day from the sky, as practiced at the
royal theatres; when, as ill luck would have it, they happened to run
their heads full butt against a new reading. Now this was “a stumper,”
as our old friend Paddle would say; for the Philadelphians are as
inveterate new-reading hunters as the cockneys; and, for aught I know,
as well skilled in finding them out. The Philadelphian thereupon met the
cockney on his own ground, and at it they went, like two inveterate curs
at a bone. ’Sbidlikens quoted Theobald, Hanmer, and a host of learned
commentators, who have pinned themselves on the sleeve of Shakespeare’s
immortality, and made the old bard, like General Washington, in General
Washington’s life, a most diminutive figure in his own book; his
opponent chose Johnson for his bottle-holder, and thundered him forward
like an elephant to bear down the ranks of the enemy. I was not long in
discovering that these two precious judges had got hold of that unlucky
passage of Shakespeare which, like a straw, has tickled, and puzzled,
and confounded many a somniferous buzzard of past and present time. It
was the celebrated wish of Desdemona, that heaven had made her such a
man as Othello. ’Sbidlikens insisted that “the gentle Desdemona” merely
wished for such a man for a husband, which in all conscience was a
modest wish enough, and very natural in a young lady who might possibly
have had a predilection for flat noses; like a certain philosophical
great man of our day. The Philadelphian contended, with all the
vehemence of a member of Congress, moving the House to have “whereas,”
or “also,” or “nevertheless” struck out of a bill, that the young lady
wished heaven had made her a man instead of a woman, in order that she
might have an opportunity of seeing the “anthropophagi, and the men
whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders;” which was a very natural
wish, considering the curiosity of the sex. On being referred to, I
incontinently decided in favor of the honorable member who spoke last;
inasmuch as I think it was a very foolish, and therefore very natural,
wish for a young lady to make before a man she wished to marry. It was,
moreover, an indication of the violent inclination she felt to wear the
breeches, which was afterward, in all probability, gratified, if we may
judge from the title of “our captain’s captain,” given her by Cassio—a
phrase which, in my opinion, indicates that Othello was, at that time,
most ignominiously henpecked. I believe my arguments staggered
’Sbidlikens himself, for he looked confoundedly queer, and said not
another word on the subject.
A little while after, at it he went again on another tack, and began to
find fault with Cooper’s manner of dying; “it was not natural,” he said;
for it had lately been demonstrated by a learned doctor of physic, that
when a man is mortally stabbed, he ought to take a flying leap of at
least five feet, and drop down “dead as a salmon in a fishmonger’s
basket.” Whenever a man, in the predicament above mentioned, departed
from this fundamental rule, by falling flat down like a log, and rolling
about for two or three minutes, making speeches all the time, the said
learned doctor maintained that it was owing to the waywardness of the
human mind, which delighted in flying in the face of nature, and dying
in defiance of all her established rules. I replied, “for my part I held
that every man had a right of dying in whatever position he pleased; and
that the mode of doing it depended altogether on the peculiar character
of the person going to die. A Persian could not die in peace unless he
had his face turned to the east; a Mahometan would always choose to have
his toward Mecca; a Frenchman might prefer this mode of throwing a
somerset; but Mynheer Van Brumblebottom, the Roscius of Rotterdam,
always chose to thunder down on his seat of honor whenever he received a
mortal wound. Being a man of ponderous dimensions, this had a most
electrifying effect, for the whole theatre ‘shook like Olympus at the
nod of Jove.’” The Philadelphian was immediately inspired with a pun,
and swore that Mynheer must be great in a dying scene, since he knew how
to make the most of his latter end.
It is the inveterate cry of stage critics, that an actor does not
perform the character naturally, if, by chance, he happens not to die
exactly as they would have him. I think the exhibition of a play at
Pekin would suit them exactly; and I wish, with all my heart, that they
would go there and see one; nature is there imitated with the most
scrupulous exactness in every trifling particular. Here an unhappy lady
or gentleman, who happens, unluckily, to be poisoned or stabbed, is left
on the stage to writhe and groan, and make faces at the audience, until
the poet pleases they should die; while the honest folks of the
_dramatis personæ_, bless their hearts! all crowd round and yield most
potent assistance, by crying and lamenting most vociferously! The
audience, tender souls, pull out their white pocket-handkerchiefs, wipe
their eyes, blow their noses, and swear it is natural as life, while the
poor actor is left to die without common Christian comfort. In China, on
the contrary, the first thing they do is to run for the doctor and
_tchoouc_, or notary. The audience are entertained throughout the fifth
act with a learned consultation of physicians, and if the patient must
die, he does it _secundum artem_, and always is allowed time to make his
will. The celebrated Chow-Chow was the completest hand I ever saw at
killing himself; he always carried under his robe a bladder of bull’s
blood, which, when he gave the mortal stab, spirted out to the infinite
delight of the audience. Not that the ladies of China are more fond of
the sight of blood than those of our own country; on the contrary, they
are remarkably sensitive in this particular; and we are told by the
great Linkum Fidelius, that the beautiful Ninny Consequa, one of the
ladies of the emperor’s seraglio, once fainted away on seeing a favorite
slave’s nose bleed; since which time, refinement has been carried to
such a pitch that a buskined hero is not allowed to run himself through
the body in the face of the audience. The immortal Chow-Chow, in
conformity to this absurd prejudice, whenever he plays the part of
Othello, which is reckoned his masterpiece, always keeps a bold front,
stabs himself slyly behind, and is dead before anybody suspects that he
has given the mortal blow.
P. S.—Just as this was going to press, I was informed by Evergreen that
Othello had not been performed here the Lord knows when; no matter, I am
not the first that has criticised a play without seeing it, and this
critique will answer for the last performance, if that was a dozen years
ago.
NO. 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.
I promised in a former letter, good Asem, that I would furnish thee with
a few hints respecting the nature of the government by which I am held
in durance. Though my inquiries for that purpose have been industrious,
yet I am not perfectly satisfied with their results; for thou mayst
easily imagine that the vision of a captive is overshadowed by the mists
of illusion and prejudice, and the horizon of his speculations must be
limited indeed. I find that the people of this country are strangely at
a loss to determine the nature and proper character of their government.
Even their dervises are extremely in the dark as to this particular, and
are continually indulging in the most preposterous disquisitions on the
subject; some have insisted that it savors of an aristocracy; others
maintain that it is a pure democracy; and a third set of theorists
declare absolutely that it is nothing more or less than a mobocracy. The
latter, I must confess, though still wide in error, have come nearest to
the truth. You of course must understand the meaning of these different
words, as they are derived from the ancient Greek language, and bespeak
loudly the verbal poverty of these poor infidels, who cannot utter a
learned phrase without laying the dead languages under contribution. A
man, my dear Asem, who talks good sense in his native tongue, is held in
tolerable estimation in this country; but a fool, who clothes his feeble
ideas in a foreign or antique garb, is bowed down to as a literary
prodigy. While I conversed with these people in plain English, I was but
little attended to; but the moment I prosed away in Greek, every one
looked up to me with veneration as an oracle.
Although the dervises differ widely in the particulars above mentioned,
yet they all agree in terming their government one of the most pacific
in the known world. I cannot help pitying their ignorance, and smiling,
at times, to see into what ridiculous errors those nations will wander,
who are unenlightened by the precepts of Mahomet, our divine prophet,
and uninstructed by the five hundred and forty-nine books of wisdom of
the immortal Ibrahim Hassan al Fusti. To call this nation pacific! Most
preposterous! it reminds me of the title assumed by the sheik of that
murderous tribe of wild Arabs, that desolate the valleys of Belsaden,
who styles himself “Star of Courtesy—Beam of the Mercy-Seat.”
The simple truth of the matter is, that these people are totally
ignorant of their own true character; for, according to the best of my
observation, they are the most warlike, and I must say, the most savage
nation that I have as yet discovered among all the barbarians. They are
not only at war, in their own way, with almost every nation on earth,
but they are at the same time engaged in the most complicated knot of
civil wars that ever infested any poor unhappy country on which Allah
has denounced his malediction!
To let thee at once into a secret, which is unknown to these people
themselves, their government is a pure unadulterated _logocracy_, or
government of words. The whole nation does everything _viva voce_, or by
word of mouth; and in this manner is one of the most military nations in
existence. Every man who has what is here called the gift of the gab,
that is, a plentiful stock of verbosity, becomes a soldier outright; and
is forever in a militant state. The country is entirely defended _vi et
linguâ_; that is to say, by force of tongues. The account which I lately
wrote to our friend, the snorer, respecting the immense army of six
hundred men, makes nothing against this observation; that formidable
body being kept up, as I have already observed, only to amuse their fair
countrywomen by their splendid appearance and nodding plumes; and are,
by way of distinction, denominated the “defenders of the fair.”
In a logocracy thou well knowest there is little or no occasion for
fire-arms, or any such destructive weapons. Every offensive or defensive
measure is enforced by wordy battle, and paper war; he who has the
longest tongue or readiest quill is sure to gain the victory—will carry
horror, abuse, and ink-shed into the very trenches of the enemy; and,
without mercy or remorse, put men, women, and children to the point of
the—pen!
There is still preserved in this country some remains of that Gothic
spirit of knight-errantry which so much annoyed the faithful in the
middle ages of the Hegira. As, notwithstanding their martial
disposition, they are a people much given to commerce and agriculture,
and must, necessarily, at certain seasons be engaged in these
employments, they have accommodated themselves by appointing knights, or
constant warriors, incessant brawlers, similar to those who, in former
ages, swore eternal enmity to the followers of our divine prophet. These
knights, denominated editors or _slang-whangers_, are appointed in every
town, village, or district, to carry on both foreign and internal
warfare, and may be said to keep up a constant firing “in words.” O my
friend, could you but witness the enormities sometimes committed by
these tremendous slang-whangers, your very turban would rise with horror
and astonishment. I have seen them extend their ravages even into the
kitchens of their opponents, and annihilate the very cook with a blast;
and I do assure thee, I beheld one of these warriors attack a most
venerable bashaw, and at one stroke of his pen lay him open from the
waistband of his breeches to his chin!
There has been a civil war carrying on with great violence for some time
past, in consequence of a conspiracy, among the higher classes, to
dethrone his highness, the present bashaw, and place another in his
stead. I was mistaken when I formerly asserted to thee that this
dissatisfaction arose from his wearing red breeches. It is true, the
nation have long held that color in great detestation, in consequence of
a dispute they had some twenty years since with the barbarians of the
British islands. The color, however, is again rising into favor, as the
ladies have transferred it to their heads from the bashaw’s —— body. The
true reason, I am told, is, that the bashaw absolutely refuses to
believe in the deluge, and in the story of Balaam’s ass; maintaining
that this animal was never yet permitted to talk except in a genuine
logocracy; where, it is true, his voice may often be heard, and is
listened to with reverence, as “the voice of the sovereign people.” Nay,
so far did he carry his obstinacy, that he absolutely invited a
professed antediluvian from the Gallic empire, who illuminated the whole
country with his principles—and his nose. This was enough to set the
nation in a blaze—every slang-whanger resorted to his tongue or his pen;
and for seven years have they carried on a most inhuman war, in which
volumes of words have been expended, oceans of ink have been shed, nor
has any mercy been shown to age, sex, or condition. Every day have these
slang-whangers made furious attacks on each other, and upon their
respective adherents; discharging their heavy artillery, consisting of
large sheets, loaded with scoundrel! villain! liar! rascal! numskull!
nincompoop! dunderhead! wiseacre! blockhead! jackass! and I do swear, by
my beard, though I know thou wilt scarcely credit me, that in some of
these skirmishes the grand bashaw himself has been wofully pelted! yea,
most ignominiously pelted! and yet have these talking desperadoes
escaped without the bastinado!
Every now and then a slang-whanger, who has a longer head, or rather a
longer tongue than the rest, will elevate his piece and discharge a shot
quite across the ocean, leveled at the head of the emperor of France,
the king of England, or, wouldst thou believe it, O Asem, even at his
sublime highness the bashaw of Tripoli! These long pieces are loaded
with single ball, or language, as tyrant! usurper! robber! tiger!
monster! and thou mayest well suppose they occasion great distress and
dismay in the camps of the enemy, and are marvelously annoying to the
crowned heads at which they are directed. The slang-whanger, though
perhaps the mere champion of a village, having fired off his shot,
struts about with great self-congratulation, chuckling at the prodigious
bustle he must have occasioned, and seems to ask of every stranger,
“Well, sir, what do they think of me in Europe?”[55] This is sufficient
to show you the manner in which these bloody, or rather windy fellows
fight; it is the only mode allowable, in a logocracy or government of
words. I would also observe that their civil wars have a thousand
ramifications.
NOTE, BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.
Footnote 55:
The sage Mustapha, when he wrote the above paragraph, had probably in
his eye the following anecdote, related either by Linkum Fidelius, or
Josephus Millerius, vulgarly called Joe Miller, of facetious memory.
The captain of a slave-vessel, on his first landing on the coast of
Guinea, observed under a palm-tree a negro chief, sitting most
majestically on a stump; while two women, with wooden spoons, were
administering his favorite pottage of boiled rice; which, as his
imperial majesty was a little greedy, would part of it escape the
place of destination and run down his chin. The watchful attendants
were particularly careful to intercept these scape-grace particles,
and return them to their proper port of entry. As the captain
approached, in order to admire this curious exhibition of royalty, the
great chief clapped his hands to his sides, and saluted his visitor
with the following pompous question—“Well, sir! what do they say of me
in England?”
While the fury of the battle rages in the metropolis, every little town
and village has a distinct broil, growing like excrescences out of the
grand national altercation, or rather agitating within it, like those
complicated pieces of mechanism where there is a “wheel within a wheel.”
But in nothing is the verbose nature of this government more evident
than in its grand national divan, or Congress, where the laws are
framed; this is a blustering, windy assembly, where everything is
carried by noise, tumult, and debate; for thou must know, that the
members of this assembly do not meet together to find wisdom in the
multitude of counselors, but to wrangle, call each other hard names, and
hear themselves talk. When the Congress opens, the bashaw first sends
them a long message, _i. e._, a huge mass of words—_vox et præterea
nihil_, all meaning nothing; because it only tells them what they
perfectly know already. Then the whole assembly are thrown into a
ferment, and have a long talk about the quantity of words that are to be
returned in answer to this message; and here arise many disputes about
the correction and alteration of “if so be’s” and “how so ever’s.” A
month, perhaps, is spent in thus determining the precise number of words
the answer shall contain; and then another, most probably, in concluding
whether it shall be carried to the bashaw on foot, on horseback, or in
coaches. Having settled this weighty matter, they next fall to work upon
the message itself, and hold as much chattering over it as so many
magpies over an addled egg. This done, they divide the message into
small portions, and deliver them into the hands of little juntoes of
talkers, called committees; these juntoes have each a world of talking
about their respective paragraphs, and return the results to the grand
divan, which forthwith falls to and retalks the matter over more
earnestly than ever. Now, after all, it is an even chance that the
subject of this prodigious arguing, quarreling, and talking is an affair
of no importance, and ends entirely in smoke. May it not then be said,
the whole nation have been talking to no purpose? The people, in fact,
seem to be somewhat conscious of this propensity to talk, by which they
are characterized, and have a favorite proverb on the subject, viz.,
“all talk and no cider;” this is particularly applied when their
Congress, or assembly of all the sage chatterers of the nation, have
chattered through a whole session, in a time of great peril and
momentous event, and have done nothing but exhibit the length of their
tongues and the emptiness of their heads. This has been the case more
than once, my friend; and to let thee into a secret, I have been told in
confidence, that there have been absolutely several old women smuggled
into Congress from different parts of the empire; who, having once got
on the breeches, as thou mayest well imagine, have taken the lead in
debate, and overwhelmed the whole assembly with their garrulity; for my
part, as times go, I do not see why old women should not be as eligible
to public councils as old men who possess their dispositions; they
certainly are eminently possessed of the qualifications requisite to
govern in a logocracy.
Nothing, as I have repeatedly insisted, can be done in this country
without talking; but they take so long to talk over a measure, that by
the time they have determined upon adopting it, the period has elapsed
which was proper for carrying it into effect. Unhappy nation! thus torn
to pieces by intestine talks! never, I fear, will it be restored to
tranquillity and silence. Words are but breath; breath is but air; and
air put into motion is nothing but wind. This vast empire, therefore,
may be compared to nothing more or less than a mighty windmill, and the
orators, and the chatterers, and the slang-whangers, are the breezes
that put it in motion; unluckily, however, they are apt to blow
different ways, and their blasts counteracting each other—the mill is
perplexed, the wheels stand still, the grist is unground, and the miller
and his family starved.
Everything partakes of the windy nature of the government. In case of
any domestic grievance, or an insult from a foreign foe, the people are
all in a buzz; town-meetings are immediately held where the quidnuncs of
the city repair, each like an Atlas, with the cares of the whole nation
upon his shoulders, each resolutely bent upon saving his country, and
each swelling and strutting like a turkey-cock; puffed up with words,
and wind, and nonsense. After bustling, and buzzing, and bawling for
some time, and after each man has shown himself to be indubitably the
greatest personage in the meeting, they pass a string of resolutions,
_i. e._ words, which were previously prepared for the purpose; these
resolutions are whimsically denominated the sense of the meeting, and
are sent off for the instruction of the reigning bashaw, who receives
them graciously, puts them into his red breeches pocket, forgets to read
them—and so the matter ends.
As to his highness, the present bashaw, who is at the very top of the
logocracy, never was a dignitary better qualified for his station. He is
a man of superlative ventosity, and comparable to nothing but a huge
bladder of wind. He talks of vanquishing all opposition by the force of
reason and philosophy: throws his gauntlet at all the notions of the
earth, and defies them to meet him—on the field of argument! Is the
national dignity insulted, a case in which his highness of Tripoli would
immediately call forth his forces, the bashaw of America—utters a
speech. Does a foreign invader molest the commerce in the very mouth of
the harbors, an insult which would induce his highness of Tripoli to
order out his fleets, his highness of America—utters a speech. Are the
free citizens of America dragged from on board the vessels of their
country, and forcibly detained in the war ships of another—his highness
utters a speech. Is a peaceable citizen killed by the marauders of a
foreign power, on the very shores of his country—his highness utters a
speech. Does an alarming insurrection break out in a distant part of the
empire—his highness utters a speech!—nay, more, for here he shows his
“energies”—he most intrepidly dispatches a courier on horseback, and
orders him to ride one hundred and twenty miles a day, with a most
formidable army of proclamations, _i. e._ a collection of words, packed
up in his saddlebags. He is instructed to show no favor nor affection;
but to charge the thickest ranks of the enemy, and to speechify and
batter by words the conspiracy and the conspirators out of existence.
Heavens, my friend, what a deal of blustering is here! It reminds me of
a dunghill cock in a farmyard, who, having accidentally in his
scratchings found a worm, immediately begins a most vociferous
cackling—calls around him his hen-hearted companions, who run chattering
from all quarters to gobble up the poor little worm that happened to
turn under his eye. O, Asem! Asem! on what a prodigious great scale is
everything in this country!
Thus, then, I conclude my observations. The infidel nations have each a
separate characteristic trait, by which they may be distinguished from
each other; the Spaniards, for instance, may be said to sleep upon every
affair of importance; the Italians to fiddle upon everything; the French
to dance upon everything; the Germans to smoke upon everything; the
British islanders to eat upon everything; and the windy subjects of the
American logocracy to talk upon everything.
For ever thine,
MUSTAPHA.
FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.