While I was making these observations, I was surprised to observe a

bashaw, high in office, shaking a fellow by the hand, that looked rather

more ragged than a scarecrow, and inquiring with apparent solicitude

concerning the health of his family; after which he slipped a little

folded paper into his hand and turned away. I could not help applauding

his humility in shaking the fellow’s hand, and his benevolence in

relieving his distresses, for I imagined the paper contained something

for the poor man’s necessities; and truly he seemed verging toward the

last stage of starvation. My friend, however, soon undeceived me by

saying that this was an elector, and that the bashaw had merely given

him the list of candidates for whom he was to vote.

“Ho! ho!” said I, “then he is a particular friend of the bashaw?”

“By no means,” replied my friend, “the bashaw will pass him without

notice, the day after the election, except, perhaps, just to drive over

him with his coach.”

My friend then proceeded to inform me that for some time before, and

during the continuance of an election, there was a most delectable

courtship, or intrigue carried on between the great bashaws and the

mother mob. That mother Mob generally preferred the attentions of the

rabble, or of fellows of her own stamp; but would sometimes condescend

to be treated to a feasting, or anything of that kind, at the bashaw’s

expense! Nay, sometimes when she was in good humor, she would condescend

to toy with him in her rough way: but woe to the bashaw who attempted to

be familiar with her, for she was the most petulant, cross, crabbed,

scolding, thieving, scratching, toping, wrongheaded, rebellious, and

abominable termagant that ever was let loose in the world to the

confusion of honest gentlemen bashaws.

Just then a fellow came round and distributed among the crowd a number

of handbills, written by the ghost of Washington, the fame of whose

illustrious actions, and still more illustrious virtues, have reached

even the remotest regions of the East, and who is venerated by this

people as the Father of his country. On reading this paltry paper, I

could not restrain my indignation. “Insulted hero,” cried I, “is it thus

thy name is profaned, thy memory disgraced, thy spirit drawn down from

heaven to administer to the brutal violence of party rage? It is thus

the necromancers of the East, by their infernal incantations, sometimes

call up the shades of the just, to give their sanction to frauds, to

lies, and to every species of enormity.” My friend smiled at my warmth,

and observed, that raising ghosts, and not only raising them but making

them speak, was one of the miracles of election. “And believe me,”

continued he, “there is good reason for the ashes of departed heroes

being disturbed on these occasions, for such is the sandy foundation of

our government, that there never happens an election of an alderman, or

a collector, or even a constable, but we are in imminent danger of

losing our liberties, and becoming a province of France, or tributary to

the British islands.” “By the hump of Mahomet’s camel,” said I, “but

this is only another striking example of the prodigious great scale on

which everything is transacted in this country!”

By this time I had become tired of the scene; my head ached with the

uproar of voices, mingling in all the discordant tones of triumphant

exclamation, nonsensical argument, intemperate reproach, and drunken

absurdity. The confusion was such as no language can adequately

describe, and it seemed as if all the restraints of decency, and all the

bands of law, had been broken and given place to the wide ravages of

licentious brutality. These, thought I, are the orgies of liberty! these

are manifestations of the spirit of independence! these are the symbols

of man’s sovereignty! Head of Mahomet! with what a fatal and inexorable

despotism do empty names and ideal phantoms exercise their dominion over

the human mind! The experience of ages has demonstrated, that in all

nations, barbarous or enlightened, the mass of the people, the mob, must

be slaves, or they will be tyrants; but their tyranny will not be long:

some ambitious leader, having at first condescended to be their slave,

will at length become their master; and in proportion to the vileness of

his former servitude, will be the severity of his subsequent tyranny.

Yet, with innumerable examples staring them in the face, the people

still bawl out liberty; by which they mean nothing but freedom from

every species of legal restraint, and a warrant for all kinds of

licentiousness: and the bashaws and leaders, in courting the mob,

convince them of their power; and by administering to their passions,

for the purposes of ambition, at length learn, by fatal experience, that

he who worships the beast that carries him on his back, will sooner or

later be thrown into the dust, and trampled under foot by the animal who

has learnt the secret of its power, by this very adoration.

Ever thine, MUSTAPHA.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

MINE UNCLE JOHN.

To those whose habits of abstraction may have let them into some of the

secrets of their own minds, and whose freedom from daily toil has left

them at leisure to analyze their feelings, it will be nothing new to say

that the present is peculiarly the season of remembrance. The flowers,

the zephyrs, and the warblers of spring, returning after their tedious

absence, bring naturally to our recollection past times and buried

feelings; and the whispers of the full-foliaged grove fall on the ear of

contemplation, like the sweet tones of far distant friends whom the rude

jostlers of the world have severed from us and cast far beyond our

reach. It is at such times, that, casting backward many a lingering

look, we recall, with a kind of sweet-souled melancholy, the days of our

youth, and the jocund companions who started with us the race of life,

but parted midway in the journey to pursue some winding path that

allured them with a prospect more seducing, and never returned to us

again. It is then, too, if we have been afflicted with any heavy sorrow,

if we have even lost—and who has not!—an old friend or chosen companion,

that his shade will hover around us; the memory of his virtues press on

the heart; and a thousand endearing recollections, forgotten amidst the

cold pleasures and midnight dissipations of winter, arise to our

remembrance.

These speculations bring to my mind my uncle John, the history of whose

loves and disappointments I have promised to the world. Though I must

own myself much addicted to forgetting my promises, yet, as I have been

so happily reminded of this, I believe I must pay it at once, “and there

is an end.” Lest my readers—good-natured souls that they are!—should, in

the ardor of peeping into millstones, take my uncle for an old

acquaintance, I here inform them, that the old gentleman died a great

many years ago, and it is impossible they should ever have known him. I

pity them—for they would have known a good-natured, benevolent man,

whose example might have been of service.

The last time I saw my uncle John, was fifteen years ago, when I paid

him a visit at his old mansion. I found him reading a newspaper—for it

was election-time, and he was always a warm Federalist, and had made

several converts to the true political faith in his time; particularly

one old tenant who always, just before the election, became a violent

anti —— in order that he might be convinced of his errors by my uncle,

who never failed to reward his conviction by some substantial benefit.

After we had settled the affairs of the nation, and I had paid my

respects to the old family chroniclers in the kitchen—an indispensable

ceremony—the old gentleman exclaimed, with heartfelt glee, “Well, I

suppose you are for a trout-fishing; I have got everything prepared; but

first you must take a walk with me to see my improvements.” I was

obliged to consent; though I knew my uncle would lead me a most

villainous dance, and in all probability treat me to a quagmire, or a

tumble into a ditch. If my readers choose to accompany me in this

expedition, they are welcome; if not, let them stay at home like lazy

fellows—and sleep—or be hanged.

Though I had been absent several years, yet there was very little

alteration in the scenery, and every object retained the same features

it bore when I was a schoolboy: for it was in this spot that I grew up

in the fear of ghosts, and in the breaking of many of the ten

commandments. The brook, or river, as they would call it in Europe,

still murmured with its wonted sweetness through the meadow; and its

banks were still tufted with dwarf willows, that bent down to the

surface. The same echo inhabited the valley, and the same tender air of

repose pervaded the whole scene. Even my good uncle was but little

altered, except that his hair was grown a little grayer, and his

forehead had lost some of its former smoothness. He had, however, lost

nothing of his former activity, and laughed heartily at the difficulty I

found in keeping up with him as he stumped through bushes, and briers,

and hedges; talking all the time about his improvements, and telling

what he would do with such a spot of ground and such a tree. At length,

after showing me his stone fences, his famous two-year-old bull, his new

invented cart, which was to go before the horse, and his Eclipse colt,

he was pleased to return home to dinner.

After dinner and returning thanks—which with him was not a ceremony

merely, but an offering from the heart—my uncle opened his trunk, took

out his fishing-tackle, and, without saying a word, sallied forth with

some of those truly alarming steps which Daddy Neptune once took when he

was in a great hurry to attend the affair of the siege of Troy.

Trout-fishing was my uncle’s favorite sport; and, though I always caught

two fish for his one, he never would acknowledge my superiority; but

puzzled himself often and often, to account for such a singular

phenomenon.

Following the current of the brook, for a mile or two, we retraced many

of our old haunts, and told a hundred adventures which had befallen us

at different times. It was like snatching the hour-glass of time,

inverting it, and rolling back again the sands that had marked the lapse

of years. At length the shadows began to lengthen, the south wind

gradually settled into a perfect calm, the sun threw his rays through

the trees on the hill-tops in golden lustre, and a kind of Sabbath

stillness pervaded the whole valley, indicating that the hour was fast

approaching which was to relieve for a while the farmer from his rural

labor, the ox from his toil, the school urchin from his primer, and

bring the loving ploughman home to the feet of his blooming dairy-maid.

As we were watching in silence the last rays of the sun, beaming their

farewell radiance on the high hills at a distance, my uncle exclaimed,

in a kind of half desponding tone, while he rested his arm over an old

tree that had fallen: “I know not how it is, my dear Launce, but such an

evening, and such a still, quiet scene as this, always makes me a little

sad; and it is at such a time I am most apt to look forward with regret

to the period when this farm, on which ‘I have been young but now am

old,’ and every object around me that is endeared by long

acquaintance—when all these and I must shake hands and part. I have no

fear of death, for my life has afforded but little temptation to

wickedness; and when I die, I hope to leave behind me more substantial

proofs of virtue than will be found in my epitaph, and more lasting

memorials than churches built or hospitals endowed, with wealth wrung

from the hard hand of poverty, by an unfeeling landlord or unprincipled

knave; but still, when I pass such a day as this and contemplate such a

scene, I cannot help feeling a latent wish to linger yet a little longer

in this peaceful asylum; to enjoy a little more sunshine in this world,

and to have a few more fishing matches with my boy.” As he ended, he

raised his hand a little from the fallen tree, and, dropping it

languidly by his side, turned himself toward home. The sentiment, the

look, the action, all seemed to be prophetic. And so they were, for when

I shook him by the hand, and bade him farewell the next morning—it was

for the last time!

He died a bachelor, at the age of sixty-three, though he had been all

his life trying to get married, and always thought himself on the point

of accomplishing his wishes. His disappointments were not owing either

to the deformity of his mind or person; for in his youth he was reckoned

handsome, and I myself can witness for him that he had as kind a heart

as ever was fashioned by heaven; neither were they owing to his

poverty—which sometimes stands in an honest man’s way—for he was born to

the inheritance of a small estate which was sufficient to establish his

claim to the title of “one well to do in the world.” The truth is, my

uncle had a prodigious antipathy to doing things in a hurry. “A man

should consider,” said he to me once, “that he can always get a wife,

but cannot always get rid of her. For my part,” continued he, “I am a

young fellow, with the world before me”—he was about forty—“and am

resolved to look sharp, weigh matters well, and know what’s what, before

I marry: in short, Launce, _I don’t intend to do the thing in a hurry,

depend upon it_.” On this whimwham he proceeded. He began with young

girls, and ended with widows. The girls he courted until they grew old

maids, or married out of pure apprehension of incurring certain

penalties hereafter; and the widows, not having quite as much patience,

generally, at the end of a year, while the good man thought himself in

the high road to success, married some _harum-scarum_ young fellow who

had not such an antipathy _to doing things in a hurry_.

My uncle would have inevitably sunk under these repeated

disappointments—for he did not want sensibility—had he not hit upon a

discovery which set all to rights at once. He consoled his vanity—for he

was a little vain, and soothed his pride—which was his master passion—by

telling his friends very significantly, while his eye would flash

triumph, “_that he might have had her_.” Those who know how much of the

bitterness of disappointed affection arises from wounded vanity and

exasperated pride, will give my uncle credit for this discovery.

My uncle had been told by a prodigious number of married men, and had

read in an innumerable quantity of books, that a man could not possibly

be happy except in the marriage state; so he determined at an early age

to marry, that he might not lose his only chance for happiness. He,

accordingly, forthwith paid his addresses to the daughter of a

neighboring gentleman farmer, who was reckoned the beauty of the whole

world; a phrase by which the honest country people mean nothing more

than the circle of their acquaintance, or that territory of land which

is within sight of the smoke of their own hamlet.

This young lady, in addition to her beauty, was highly accomplished, for

she had spent five or six months at a boarding-school in town, where she

learned to work pictures in satin and paint sheep, that might be

mistaken for wolves; to hold up her head, sit straight in her chair, and

to think every species of useful acquirement beneath her attention. When

she returned home, so completely had she forgotten everything she knew

before, that on seeing one of the maids milking a cow, she asked her

father, with an air of most enchanting ignorance, “what that odd-looking

thing was doing to that queer animal?” The old man shook his head at

this; but the mother was delighted at these symptoms of gentility, and

so enamored of her daughter’s accomplishments that she actually got

framed a picture worked in satin by the young lady. It represented the

tomb scene in Romeo and Juliet. Romeo was dressed in an orange-colored

cloak, fastened round his neck with a large golden clasp; a white satin

tamboured waistcoat, leather breeches, blue silk stockings, and white

topped boots. The amiable Juliet shone in a flame-colored gown, most

gorgeously bespangled with silver stars, a high crowned muslin cap that

reached to the top of the tomb; on her feet she wore a pair of

short-quartered high-heeled shoes, and her waist was the exact

fac-simile of an inverted sugarloaf. The head of the “noble county

Paris” looked like a chimney sweeper’s brush that had lost its handle,

and the cloak of the good Friar hung about him as gracefully as the

armor of a rhinoceros. The good lady considered this picture as a

splendid proof of her daughter’s accomplishments, and hung it up in the

best parlor, as an honest tradesman does his certificate of admission

into that enlightened body yclept the Mechanic Society.

With this accomplished young lady then did my uncle John become deeply

enamored, and, as it was his first love, he determined to bestir himself

in an extraordinary manner. Once at least in a fortnight, and generally

on a Sunday evening, he would put on his leather breeches, for he was a

great beau, mount his gray horse Pepper, and ride over to see his Miss

Pamela, though she lived upward of a mile off, and he was obliged to

pass close by a churchyard, which at least a hundred creditable persons

would swear was haunted! Miss Pamela could not be insensible to such

proofs of attachment, and accordingly received him with considerable

kindness; her mother always left the room when he came, and my uncle had

as good as made a declaration, by saying, one evening, very

significantly, “that he believed that he should soon change his

condition;” when, somehow or other, he began to think he was _doing

things in too great a hurry_, and that it was high time to consider; so

he considered near a month about it, and there is no saying how much

longer he might have spun the thread of his doubts had he not been

roused from this state of indecision, by the news that his mistress had

married an attorney’s apprentice, whom she had seen the Sunday before at

church; where he had excited the applauses of the whole congregation by

the invincible gravity with which he listened to a Dutch sermon. The

young people in the neighborhood laughed a good deal at my uncle on the

occasion, but he only shrugged his shoulders, looked mysterious, and

replied, “_Tut, boys! I might have had her._”

NOTE BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

Our publisher, who is busily engaged in printing a celebrated work,

which is perhaps more generally read in this city than any other book,

not excepting the Bible—I mean the New York Directory—has begged so

hard that we will not overwhelm him with too much of a good thing,

that we have, with Langstaff’s approbation, cut short the residue of

uncle John’s amours. In all probability it will be given in a future

number, whenever Launcelot is in the humor for it—he is such an

odd—but mum, for fear of another suspension.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

NO. XII.—SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1807.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

Some men delight in the study of plants, in the dissection of a leaf, or

in the contour and complexion of a tulip; others are charmed with the

beauties of the feathered race, or the varied hues of the insect tribe.

A naturalist will spend hours in the fatiguing pursuit of a butterfly,

and a man of the ton will waste whole years in the chase of a fine lady.

I feel a respect for their avocations, for my own are somewhat similar.

I love to open the great volume of human character; to me the

examination of a beau is more interesting than that of a daffodil or

narcissus, and I feel a thousand times more pleasure in catching a new

view of human nature, than in kidnapping the most gorgeous

butterfly—even an Emperor of Morocco himself!

In my present situation I have ample room for the indulgence of this

taste; for, perhaps, there is not a house in this city more fertile in

subjects for the anatomist of human character, than my Cousin

Cockloft’s. Honest Christopher, as I have before mentioned, is one of

those hearty old cavaliers who pride themselves upon keeping up the

good, honest, unceremonious hospitality of old times. He is never so

happy as when he has drawn about him a knot of sterling-hearted

associates, and sits at the head of his table dispensing a warm,

cheering welcome to all. His countenance expands at every glass and

beams forth emanations of hilarity, benevolence, and goodfellowship,

that inspire and gladden every guest around him. It is no wonder,

therefore, that such excellent social qualities should attract a host of

friends and guests; in fact, my cousin is almost overwhelmed with them,

and they all, uniformly, pronounce old Cockloft to be one of the finest

old fellows in the world. His wine also always comes in for a good share

of their approbation; nor do they forget to do honor to Mrs. Cockloft’s

cookery, pronouncing it to be modeled after the most approved recipes of

Heliogabalus and Mrs. Glasse. The variety of company thus attracted is

particularly pleasing to me; for, being considered a privileged person

in the family, I can sit in a corner, indulge in my favorite amusement

of observation, and retreat to my elbow-chair like a bee to his hive,

whenever I have collected sufficient food for meditation.

Will Wizard is particularly efficient in adding to the stock of

originals which frequent our house; for he is one of the most inveterate

hunters of oddities I ever knew; and his first care, on making a new

acquaintance, is to gallant him to old Cockloft’s, where he never fails

to receive the freedom of the house in a pinch from his gold box. Will

has, without exception, the queerest, most eccentric, and indescribable

set of intimates that ever man possessed; how he became acquainted with

them I cannot conceive, except by supposing there is a secret attraction

or unintelligible sympathy that unconsciously draws together oddities of

every soil.

Will’s great crony for some time was Tom Straddle, to whom he took a

great liking. Straddle had just arrived in an importation of hardware,

fresh from the city of Birmingham, or rather, as the most learned

English would call it, _Brummagem_, so famous for its manufactories of

gimlets, penknives, and pepper-boxes; and where they make buttons and

beaux enough to inundate our whole country. He was a young man of

considerable standing in the manufactory at Birmingham, sometimes had

the honor to hand his master’s daughter into a tim-whisky, was the

oracle of the tavern he frequented on Sundays, and could beat all his

associates, if you would take his word for it, in boxing, beer-drinking,

jumping over chairs, and imitating cats in a gutter and opera singers.

Straddle was, moreover, a member of a Catch Club, and was a great hand

at ringing bob-majors; he was, of course, a complete connoisseur of

music, and entitled to assume that character at all performances in the

art. He was likewise a member of a Spouting Club, had seen a company of

strolling actors perform in a barn, and had even, like Abel Drugger,

“enacted” the part of Major Sturgeon with considerable applause; he was

consequently a profound critic, and fully authorized to turn up his nose

at any American performances. He had twice partaken of annual dinners,

given to the head manufacturers of Birmingham, where he had the good

fortune to get a taste of turtle and turbot, and a smack of champagne

and Burgundy; and he had heard a vast deal of the roast beef of Old

England; he was therefore epicure sufficient to d—n every dish, and

every glass of wine he tasted in America, though, at the same time, he

was as voracious an animal as ever crossed the Atlantic. Straddle had

been splashed half a dozen times by the carriages of nobility, and had

once the superlative felicity of being kicked out of doors by the

footman of a noble duke; he could, therefore, talk of nobility and

despise the untitled plebeians of America. In short, Straddle was one of

those dapper, bustling, florid, round, self-important “_gemmen_” who

bounce upon us, half beau, half button-maker; undertake to give us the

true polish of the _bon-ton_, and endeavor to inspire us with a proper

and dignified contempt of our native country.

Straddle was quite in raptures when his employers determined to send him

to America as an agent. He considered himself as going among a nation of

barbarians, where he would be received as a prodigy; he anticipated,

with a proud satisfaction, the bustle and confusion his arrival would

occasion; the crowd that would throng to gaze at him as he passed

through the streets; and had little doubt but that he should occasion as

much curiosity as an Indian chief or a Turk in the streets of

Birmingham. He had heard of the beauty of our women, and chuckled at the

thought of how completely he should eclipse their unpolished beaux, and

the number of despairing lovers that would mourn the hour of his

arrival. I am even informed by Will Wizard that he put good store of

beads, spike-nails, and looking-glasses in his trunk to win the

affections of the fair ones as they paddled about in their bark canoes.

The reason Will gave for this error of Straddle’s, respecting our

ladies, was, that he had read in Guthrie’s Geography that the aborigines

of America were all savages; and not exactly understanding the word

“aborigines,” he applied to one of his fellow-apprentices, who assured

him that it was the Latin word for inhabitants.

Wizard used to tell another anecdote of Straddle, which always put him

in a passion: Will swore that the captain of the ship told him, that

when Straddle heard they were off the banks of Newfoundland, he insisted

upon going on shore there to gather some good cabbages, of which he was

excessively fond. Straddle, however, denied all this, and declared it to

be a mischievous _quiz_ of Will Wizard; who indeed often made himself

merry at his expense. However this may be, certain it is, he kept his

tailor and shoemaker constantly employed for a month before his

departure; equipped himself with a smart crooked stick about eighteen

inches long, a pair of breeches of most unheard-of length, a little

short pair of Hoby’s white topped boots, that seemed to stand on tip-toe

to reach his breeches, and his hat had the true transatlantic

declination toward his right ear. The fact was—nor did he make any

secret of it—he was determined to “_astonish the natives a few_!”

Straddle was not a little disappointed on his arrival, to find the

Americans were rather more civilized than he had imagined; he was

suffered to walk to his lodgings unmolested by a crowd, and even

unnoticed by a single individual; no love-letters came pouring in upon

him; no rivals lay in wait to assassinate him; his very dress excited no

attention, for there were many fools dressed equally ridiculously with

himself. This was mortifying indeed to an aspiring youth, who had come

out with the idea of astonishing and captivating. He was equally

unfortunate in his pretensions to the character of critic, connoisseur,

and boxer; he condemned our whole dramatic corps, and everything

appertaining to the theatre; but his critical abilities were ridiculed;

he found fault with old Cockloft’s dinner, not even sparing his wine,

and was never invited to the house afterward; he scoured the streets at

night, and was cudgeled by a sturdy watchman; he hoaxed an honest

mechanic, and was soundly kicked. Thus disappointed in all his attempts

at notoriety, Straddle hit on the expedient which was resorted to by the

_Giblets_—he determined to take the town by storm. He accordingly bought

horses and equipages, and forthwith made a furious dash at style in a

gig and tandem.

As Straddle’s finances were but limited, it may easily be supposed that

his fashionable career infringed a little upon his consignment, which

was indeed the case, for, to use a true cockney phrase, _Brummagem

suffered_. But this was a circumstance that made little impression upon

Straddle who was now a lad of spirit, and lads of spirit always despise

the sordid cares of keeping another man’s money. Suspecting this

circumstance, I never could witness any of his exhibitions of style,

without some whimsical association of ideas. Did he give an

entertainment to a host of guzzling friends, I immediately fancied them

gormandizing heartily at the expense of poor Birmingham, and swallowing

a consignment of hand-saws and razors. Did I behold him dashing through

Broadway in his gig, I saw him, “in my mind’s eye,” driving tandem on a

nest of tea-boards; nor could I ever contemplate his cockney exhibitions

of horsemanship, but my mischievous imagination would picture him

spurring a cask of hardware, like rosy Bacchus bestriding a beer barrel,

or the little gentleman who bestraddles the world in the front of

Hutching’s almanac.

Straddle was equally successful with the Giblets, as may well be

supposed; for though pedestrian merit may strive in vain to become

fashionable in Gotham, yet a candidate in an equipage is always

recognized, and like Philip’s ass, laden with gold, will gain admittance

everywhere. Mounted in his curricle or his gig, the candidate is like a

statue elevated on a high pedestal, his merits are discernible from

afar, and strike the dullest optics. O, Gotham, Gotham! most enlightened

of cities!—how does my heart swell with delight when I behold your

sapient inhabitants lavishing their attention with such wonderful

discernment!

Thus Straddle became quite a man of ton, and was caressed, and courted,

and invited to dinners and balls. Whatever was absurd or ridiculous in

him before, was now declared to be the style. He criticised our theatre,

and was listened to with reverence. He pronounced our musical

entertainments barbarous; and the judgment of Apollo himself would not

have been more decisive. He abused our dinners: and the god of eating,

if there be any such deity, seemed to speak through his organs. He

became at once a man of taste, for he put his malediction on everything;

and his arguments were conclusive, for he supported every assertion with

a bet. He was likewise pronounced, by the learned in the fashionable

world, a young man of great research and deep observation; for he had

sent home, as natural curiosities, an ear of Indian corn, a pair of

moccasins, a belt of wampum, and a four-leaved clover. He had taken

great pains to enrich this curious collection with an Indian and a

cataract, but without success. In fine, the people talked of Straddle

and his equipage, and Straddle talked of his horses, until it was

impossible for the most critical observer to pronounce, whether Straddle

or his horses were most admired, or whether Straddle admired himself or

his horses most.

Straddle was now in the zenith of his glory. He swaggered about parlors

and drawing rooms with the same unceremonious confidence he used to

display in the taverns at Birmingham. He accosted a lady as he would a

bar-maid; and this was pronounced a certain proof that he had been used

to better company in Birmingham. He became the great man of all the

taverns between New York and Harlem, and no one stood a chance of being

accommodated, until Straddle and his horses were perfectly satisfied. He

d——d the landlords and waiters with the best air in the world, and

accosted them with the true gentlemanly familiarity. He staggered from

the dinner-table to the play, entered the box like a tempest, and staid

long enough to be bored to death, and to bore all those who had the

misfortune to be near him. From thence he dashed off to a ball time

enough to flounder through a cotillon, tear half a dozen gowns, commit a

number of other depredations, and make the whole company sensible of his

infinite condescension in coming amongst them. The people of Gotham

thought him a prodigious fine fellow; the young bucks cultivated his

acquaintance with the most persevering assiduity; and his retainers were

sometimes complimented with a seat in his curricle, or a ride on one of

his fine horses. The belles were delighted with the attentions of such a

fashionable gentleman, and struck with astonishment at his learned

distinctions between wrought scissors and those of cast-steel; together

with his profound dissertations on buttons and horse flesh. The rich

merchants courted his acquaintance because he was an Englishman, and

their wives treated him with great deference because he had come from

beyond seas. I cannot help here observing that your salt water is a

marvelous great sharpener of men’s wits, and I intend to recommend it to

some of my acquaintance in a particular essay.

Straddle continued his brilliant career for only a short time. His

prosperous journey over the turnpike of fashion was checked by some of

those stumbling-blocks in the way of aspiring youth, called creditors,

or duns—a race of people who, as a celebrated writer observes, “are

hated by gods and men.” Consignments slackened, whispers of distant

suspicion floated in the dark, and those pests of society, the tailors

and shoemakers, rose in rebellion against Straddle. In vain were all his

remonstrances, in vain did he prove to them that though he had given

them no money, yet he had given them more custom, and as many promises

as any young man in the city. They were inflexible, and the signal of

danger being given, a host of other prosecutors pounced upon his back.

Straddle saw there was but one way for it; he determined to do the thing

genteelly, to go to smash like a hero, and dashed into the limits in

high style, being the fifteenth gentleman I have known to drive tandem

to the—_ne plus ultra_—the d——l.

Unfortunate Straddle! May thy fate be a warning to all young gentlemen

who come out from Birmingham to astonish the natives! I should never

have taken the trouble to delineate his character had he not been a

genuine cockney, and worthy to be the representative of his numerous

tribe. Perhaps my simple countrymen may hereafter be able to distinguish

between the real English gentleman, and individuals of the cast I have

heretofore spoken of, as mere mongrels, springing at one bound from

contemptible obscurity at home to daylight and splendor in this

good-natured land. The true-born and true-bred English gentleman is a

character I hold in great respect; and I love to look back to the period

when our forefathers flourished in the same generous soil, and hailed

each other as brothers. But the cockney!—when I contemplate him as

springing, too, from the same source, I feel ashamed of the

relationship, and am tempted to deny my origin. In the character of

Straddle is traced the complete outline of a true cockney, of English

growth, and a descendant of that individual facetious character

mentioned by Shakespeare, “_who, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered

his hay_.”[61]

THE STRANGER AT HOME; OR, A TOUR IN BROADWAY.

BY JEREMY COCKLOFT, THE YOUNGER.

PREFACE.

Your learned traveller begins his travels at the commencement of his

journey; others begin theirs at the end; and a third class begin anyhow

and anywhere, which I think is the true way. A late facetious writer

begins what he calls a “Picture of New York,” with a particular

description of Glen’s Falls, from whence, with admirable dexterity, he

makes a digression to the celebrated Mill Rock on Long Island! Now, this

is what I like; and I intend, in my present tour, to digress as often

and as long as I please. If, therefore, I choose to make a hop, skip,

and jump to China, or New Holland, or Terra Incognita, or Communipaw, I

can produce a host of examples to justify me, even in books that have

been praised by the English reviewers, whose _fiat_ being all that is

necessary to give books a currency in this country, I am determined, as

soon as I finish my edition of travels in seventy-five volumes, to

transmit it forthwith to them for judgment. If these Transatlantic

censors praise it, I have no fear of its success in this country, where

their approbation gives, like the Tower stamp, a fictitious value, and

makes tinsel and wampum pass current for classic gold.

CHAPTER I.

Battery—flag-staff kept by Louis Keaffee—Keaffee maintains two

spy-glasses by subscriptions—merchants pay two shillings a year to look

through them at the signal poles on Staten Island—a very pleasant

prospect; but not so pleasant as that from the hill of Howth—query, ever

been there? Young seniors go down to the flag-staff to buy pea-nuts and

beer, after the fatigue of their morning studies, and sometimes to play

at ball, or some other innocent amusement—digression to the Olympic and

Isthmian games, with a description of the Isthmus of Corinth, and that

of Darien: to conclude with a dissertation on the Indian custom of

offering a whiff of tobacco smoke to their great spirit Areskou.—Return

to the Battery—delightful place to indulge in the luxury of sentiment.

How various are the mutations of this world! but a few days, a few

hours,—at least not above two hundred years ago, and this spot was

inhabited by a race of aborigines, who dwelt in bark huts, lived upon

oysters and Indian corn, danced buffalo dances, and were lords “of the

fowl and the brute;” but the spirit of time, and the spirit of brandy

have swept them from their ancient inheritance; and as the white wave of

the ocean, by its ever toiling assiduity, gains on the brown land, so

the white man, by slow and sure degrees, has gained on the brown savage,

and dispossessed him of the land of his forefathers.—Conjectures on the

first peopling of America—different opinions on that subject, to the

amount of near one hundred—opinion of Augustine Torniel—that they are

the descendants of Shem and Japheth, who came by the way of Japan to

America.—Juffridius Petre says they came from Friezland.—mem. cold

journey—Mons. Charron says they are descended from the Gauls—bitter

enough—A. Milius from the Celtæ—Kircher from the Egyptians—L’Compte from

the Phœnicians—Lescarbort from the Canaanites, alias the

Anthropophagi—Brerewood from Tartars—Grotius from the Norwegians—and

Linkum Fidelius has written two folio volumes to prove that America was

first of all peopled either by the antipodeans or the Cornish miners,

who, he maintains, might easily have made a subterranean passage to this

country, particularly the antipodeans, who, he asserts, can get along

under ground as fast as moles—query, which of these is in the right, or

are they all wrong? For my part, I don’t see why America had not as good

a right to be peopled at first, as any little contemptible country in

Europe, or Asia; and I am determined to write a book at my first

leisure, to prove that Noah was born here—and that so far is America

from being indebted to any other country for inhabitants, that they were

every one of them peopled by colonies from her!—mem. Battery a very

pleasant place to walk on a Sunday evening—not quite genteel

though—everybody walks there, and a pleasure, however genuine, is

spoiled by general participation—the fashionable ladies of New York turn

up their noses if you ask them to walk on the Battery on Sunday—query,

have they scruples of conscience, or scruples of delicacy? Neither—they

have only scruples of gentility, which are quite different things.

CHAPTER II.

Custom-house[62]—origin of duties on merchandise—this place

much frequented by merchants—and why?—different classes of

merchants—importers—a kind of nobility—wholesale merchants—have the

privilege of going to the city assembly!—Retail traders cannot go to the

assembly.—Some curious speculations on the vast distinction betwixt

selling tape by the piece or by the yard.—Wholesale merchants look down

upon the retailers, who in return look down upon the green-grocers, who

look down upon the market-women, who don’t care a straw about any of

them.—Origin of the distinctions of rank—Dr. Johnson once horribly

puzzled to settle the point of precedence between a louse and a

flea—good hint enough to humble purse-proud arrogance.—Custom-house

partly used as a lodging-house for the pictures belonging to the Academy

of Arts—couldn’t afford the statues house-room, most of them in the

cellar of the City Hall—poor place for the gods and goddesses—after

Olympus.—Pensive reflections on the ups and downs of life—Apollo, and

the rest of the set, used to cut a great figure in days of yore.—Mem.

every dog has his day—sorry for Venus though, poor wench, to be cooped

up in a cellar with not a single grace to wait on her!—Eulogy on the

gentlemen of the Academy of Arts, for the great spirit with which they

began the undertaking, and the perseverance with which they have pursued

it—it is a pity, however, they began at the wrong end—maxim—If you want

a bird and a cage, always buy the cage first—hem!—a word to the wise!

CHAPTER III.

Bowling Green—fine place for pasturing cows—a perquisite of the late

corporation—formerly ornamented with a statue of George the Third—people

pulled it down in the war to make bullets—great pity; it might have been

given to the Academy—it would have become a cellar as well as any

other.—Broadway—great difference in the gentility of streets—a man who

resides in Pearl street, or Chatham Row, derives no kind of dignity from

his domicil; but place him in a certain part of Broadway, anywhere

between the Battery and Wall street, and he straightway becomes entitled

to figure in the beau monde, and strut as a person of prodigious

consequence!—Query, whether there is a degree of purity in the air of

that quarter which changes the gross particles of vulgarity into gems of

refinement and polish? A question to be asked, but not to be

answered—New brick church!—What a pity it is the corporation of Trinity

church are so poor!—if they could not afford to build a better place of

worship, why did they not go about with a subscription?—even I would

have given them a few shillings rather than our city should have been

disgraced by such a pitiful specimen of economy—Wall street—City Hall,

famous place for catch-poles, deputy sheriffs, and young lawyers; which

last attend the courts, not because they have business there, but

because they have no business anywhere else. My blood always curdles

when I see a catch-pole, they being a species of vermin who feed and

fatten on the common wretchedness of mankind, who trade in misery, and

in becoming the executioners of the law, by their oppression and

villainy, almost counterbalance all the benefits which are derived from

its salutary regulations—Story of Quevedo about a catch-pole possessed

by a devil, who, on being interrogated, declared that he did not come

there voluntarily, but by compulsion; and that a decent devil would

never, of his own free will, enter into the body of a catch-pole;

instead, therefore, of doing him the injustice to say that here was a

catch-pole bedeviled, they should say, it was a devil be-catch-poled;

that being in reality the truth—Wonder what has become of the old crier

of the court, who used to make more noise in preserving silence than the

audience did in breaking it—if a man happened to drop his cane, the old

hero would sing out “silence!” in a voice that emulated the “wide

mouthed thunder”—On inquiring, found he had retired from business to

enjoy _otium cum dignitate_, as many a great man has done before.

Strange that wise men, as they are thought, should toil through a whole

existence merely to enjoy a few moments of leisure at last! why don’t

they begin to be easy at first, and not purchase a moment’s pleasure

with an age of pain?—mem. posed some of the jockeys—eh!

CHAPTER IV.

Barber’s pole; three different orders of _shavers_ in New York—those who

shave _pigs_; N. B.—freshmen and sophomores,—those who cut beards, and

those who _shave notes of hand_; the last are the most respectable,

because, in the course of a year, they make more money, and that

_honestly_, than the whole corps of other _shavers_ can do in half a

century; besides, it would puzzle a common barber to ruin any man,

except by cutting his throat; whereas your higher order of _shavers_,

your true blood-suckers of the community, seated snugly behind the

curtain, in watch for prey, live on the vitals of the unfortunate, and

grow rich on the ruin of thousands. Yet this last class of _barbers_ are

held in high respect in the world; they never offend against the

decencies of life, go often to church, look down on honest poverty

walking on foot, and call themselves gentlemen; yea, men of

honor!—Lottery offices—another set of capital shavers!—licensed gambling

houses! good things enough, as they enable a few _honest industrious

gentlemen_ to humbug the people—according to law; besides, if the people

will be such fools, whose fault is it but their own if they get

_bit_?—Messrs. Paff—beg pardon for putting them in such bad company,

because they are a couple of fine fellows—mem. to recommend Michael’s

antique snuff-box to all amateurs _in the art_.—Eagle singing Yankee

doodle—N. B.—Buffon, Pennant and the rest of the naturalists, all

_naturals_ not to know the eagle was a singing bird; Linkum Fidelius

knew better, and gives a long description of a bald eagle that serenaded

him once in Canada;—digression; particular account of the Canadian

Indians;—story about Areskou learning to make fishing nets of a

spider—don’t believe it, though, because, according to Linkum, and many

other learned authorities, Areskou is the same as _Mars_, being derived

from his Greek name of _Ares_; and if so, he knew well enough what _a

net_ was without consulting a spider;—story of Arachne being changed

into a spider as a reward for having hanged herself;—derivation of the

word spinster from spider;—Colophon, now Altobosco, the birthplace of

Arachne, remarkable for a famous breed of spiders to this day;—mem.

nothing like a little scholarship—make the _ignoramus_, viz. the

majority of my readers, stare like wild pigeons;—return to New York a

short cut—meet a dashing belle, in a little thick white veil—tried to

get a peep at her face—saw she squinted a little—thought so at

first;—never saw a face covered with a veil that was worth looking

at;—saw some ladies holding a conversation across the street about going

to church next Sunday—talked so loud they frightened a cartman’s horse,

who ran away, and overset a basket of gingerbread with a little boy

under it;—mem. I don’t much see the use of speaking-trumpets nowadays.

CHAPTER V.

Bought a pair of gloves; dry-goods stores the genuine schools of

politeness—true Parisian manners there—got a pair of gloves and a

pistareen’s worth of bows for a dollar—dog cheap!—Courtlandt street

corner—famous place to see the belles go by—query, ever been

shopping with a lady?—some account of it—ladies go into all the

shops in the city to buy a pair of gloves—good way of spending time,

if they have nothing else to do.—Oswego market—looks very much like

a triumphal arch—some account of the manner of erecting them in

ancient times; digression to the _arch_-duke Charles, and some

account of the ancient Germans. N. B.—quote Tacitus on this

subject.—Particular description of market-baskets, butcher’s blocks,

and wheelbarrows;—mem. queer things run upon one wheel!—Saw a

cartman driving full tilt through Broadway—run over a child—good

enough for it—what business had it to be in the way?—Hint concerning

the laws against pigs, goats, dogs, and cartmen,—grand apostrophe to

the sublime science of jurisprudence;—comparison between legislators

and tinkers; query, whether it requires greater ability to mend a

law than to mend a kettle?—inquiry into the utility of making laws

that are broken a hundred times a day with impunity;—my Lord Coke’s

opinion on the subject; my Lord a very great man—so was Lord Bacon:

a good story about a criminal named Hog claiming relationship with

him.—Hogg’s porter-house;—a great haunt of Will Wizard; Will put

down there one night by a sea-captain, in an argument concerning the

era of the Chinese empire Whangpo;—Hogg’s a capital place for

hearing the same stories, the same jokes, and the same songs every

night in the year—mem. except Sunday nights; fine school for young

politicians too—some of the longest and thickest heads in the city

come there to settle the nation.—Scheme of _Ichabod Fungus_ to

restore the balance of Europe;—digression;—some account of the

balance of Europe; comparison between it and a pair of scales, with

the Emperor Alexander in one and the Emperor Napoleon in the other:

fine fellows—both of a weight, can’t tell which will kick the

beam:—mem. don’t care much either—nothing to me:—_Ichabod_ very

unhappy about it—thinks Napoleon has an eye on this country—capital

place to pasture his horses, and provide for the rest of his

family.—Dey street—ancient Dutch name of it, signifying murderers’

valley, formerly the site of a great peach orchard; my grandmother’s

history of the famous _Peach war_—arose from an Indian stealing

peaches out of this orchard; good cause as need be for a war; just

as good as the balance of power. Anecdote of war between two Italian

states about a bucket; introduce some capital new truisms about the

folly of mankind, the ambition of kings, potentates, and princes;

particularly Alexander, Cæsar, Charles the XIIth, Napoleon, little

King Pepin, and the great Charlemagne.—Conclude with an exhortation

to the present race of sovereigns to keep the king’s peace, and

abstain from all those deadly quarrels which produce battle, murder,

and sudden death—mem.—ran my nose against a lamp-post—conclude in

great dudgeon.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

Our cousin Pindar, after having been confined for some time past with a

fit of the gout, which is a kind of keepsake in our family, has again

set his mill going, as my readers will perceive. On reading his piece I

could not help smiling at the high compliments which, contrary to his

usual style, he has lavished on the dear sex. The old gentleman,

unfortunately observing my merriment, stumped out of the room with great

vociferation of crutch, and has not exchanged three words with me since.

I expect every hour to hear that he has packed up his movables, and, as

usual in all cases of disgust, retreated to his old country house.

Pindar, like most of the old Cockloft heroes, is wonderfully susceptible

to the genial influence of warm weather. In winter he is one of the most

crusty old bachelors under heaven, and is wickedly addicted to sarcastic

reflections of every kind, particularly on the little enchanting foibles

and whimwhams of women. But when the spring comes on, and the mild

influence of the sun releases nature from her icy fetters, the ice of

his bosom dissolves into a gentle current which reflects the bewitching

qualities of the fair; as in some mild, clear evening, when nature

reposes in silence, the stream bears in its pure bosom all the starry

magnificence of heaven. It is under the control of this influence he has

written his piece; and I beg the ladies, in the plenitude of their

harmless conceit, not to flatter themselves that because the good Pindar

has suffered them to escape his censures he had nothing more to censure.

It is but sunshine and zephyrs which have wrought this wonderful change;

and I am much mistaken if the first northeaster don’t convert all his

good nature into most exquisite spleen.

FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.

How often I cast my reflections behind,

And call up the days of past youth to my mind,

When folly assails in habiliments new,

When fashion obtrudes some fresh whimwham to view;

When the foplings of fashion bedazzle my sight,

Bewilder my feelings—my senses benight;

I retreat in disgust from the world of to-day,

To commune with the world that has mouldered away;

To converse with the shades of those friends of my love,

Long gather’d in peace to the angels above.

In my rambles through life should I meet with annoy,

From the bold, beardless stripling—the turbid, pert boy—

One reared in the mode lately reckon’d genteel,

Which, neglecting the head, aims to perfect the heel;

Which completes the sweet fopling while yet in his teens,

And fits him for fashion’s light changeable scenes;

Proclaims him a man to the near and the far,

Can he dance a cotillon or smoke a cigar;

And though brainless and vapid as vapid can be,

To routs and to parties pronounces him free:—

O, I think on the beaux that existed of yore,

On those rules of the _ton_ that exist now no more!

I recall with delight how each yonker at first

In the cradle of science and virtue was nursed:

—How the graces of person and graces of mind,

The polish of learning and fashion combined,

Till softened in manners and strengthened in head,

By the classical lore of the living and dead,

Matured in his person till manly in size,

He _then_ was presented a beau to our eyes!

My nieces of late have made frequent complaint

That they suffer vexation and painful constraint,

By having their circles too often distrest

By some three or four goslings just fledged from the nest,

Who, propp’d by the credit their fathers sustain,

Alike tender in years and in person and brain,

But plenteously stock’d with that substitute, brass,

For true wits and critics would anxiously pass.

They complain of that empty sarcastical slang,

So common to all the coxcombical gang,

Who the fair with their shallow experience vex,

By thrumming forever their weakness of sex;

And who boast of themselves, when they talk with proud air

Of Man’s mental ascendency over the fair.

’Twas thus the young owlet produced in the nest,

Where the eagle of Jove her young eaglets had prest,

Pretended to boast of his royal descent,

And vaunted that force which to eagles is lent.

Though fated to shun with his dim visual ray,

The cheering delights and the brilliance of day;

To forsake the fair regions of ether and light,

For dull moping caverns of darkness and night:

Still talk’d of that eagle-like strength of the eye,

Which approaches unwinking the pride of the sky,

Of that wing which unwearied can hover and play

In the noon-tide effulgence and torrent of day.

Dear girls, the sad evils of which ye complain

Your sex must endure from the feeble and vain,

’Tis the commonplace jest of the nursery scapegoat,

’Tis the commonplace ballad that croaks from his throat;

He knows not that nature—that polish decrees,

That women should always endeavor to please:

That the law of their system has early imprest

The importance of fitting themselves to each guest;

And, of course, that full oft when ye trifle and play,

’Tis to gratify triflers who strut in your way.

The child might as well of its mother complain,

As wanting true wisdom and soundness of brain;

Because that, at times, while it hangs on her breast,

She with a “lullaby-baby” beguiles it to rest.

’Tis its weakness of mind that induces the strain,

For wisdom to infants is prattled in vain.

’Tis true at odd times, when in frolicsome fit,

In the midst of his gambols, the mischievous wit

May start some light foible that clings to the fair

Like cobwebs that fasten to objects most rare,—

In the play of his fancy will sportively say

Some delicate censure that pops in his way.

He may smile at your fashions, and frankly express

His dislike of a dance or a flaming red dress;

Yet he blames not your want of man’s physical force,

Nor complains though ye cannot in Latin discourse.

He delights in the language of nature ye speak,

Though not so refined as true classic Greek.

He remembers that Providence never design’d

Our females like suns to bewilder and blind;

But like the mild orb of pale ev’ning serene,

Whose radiance illumines, yet softens the scene,

To light us with cheering and welcoming ray,

Along the rude path when the sun is away.

I own in my scribblings I lately have nam’d

Some faults of our fair which I gently have blam’d,

But be it forever by all understood,

My censures were only pronounc’d for their good.

I delight in the sex; ’tis the pride of my mind.

To consider them gentle, endearing, refin’d;

As our solace below, in the journey of life,

To smooth its rough passes—to soften its strife:

As objects intended our joys to supply,

And to lead us in love to the temples on high.

How oft have I felt, when two lucid blue eyes,

As calm and as bright as the gems of the skies,

Have beam’d their soft radiance into my soul,

Impress’d with an awe like an angel’s control!

Yes, fair ones, by this is forever defin’d

The fop from the man of refinement and mind;

The latter believes ye in bounty were given

As a bond upon earth of our union with heaven;

And if ye are weak and are frail, in his view

’Tis to call forth fresh warmth and his fondness renew.

’Tis his joy to support these defects of your frame,

And his love at your weakness redoubles its flame;

He rejoices the gem is so rich and so fair,

And is proud that it claims his protection and care.

[Illustration]

NO. XIII.—FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1807.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

I was not a little perplexed, a short time since, by the eccentric

conduct of my knowing coadjutor, Will Wizard. For two or three days he

was completely in a quandary. He would come into old Cockloft’s parlor

ten times a day, swinging his ponderous legs along, with his usual vast

strides, clap his hands into his sides, contemplate the little

shepherdesses on the mantel-piece for a few minutes, whistling all the

while, and then sally out full sweep, without uttering a word. To be

sure, a pish or a pshaw occasionally escaped him; and he was observed

once to pull out his enormous tobacco-box, drum for a moment upon its

lid with his knuckles, and then return it into his pocket without taking

a quid. ’Twas evident Will was full of some mighty idea: not that his

restlessness was any way uncommon; for I have often seen Will throw

himself almost in a fever of heat and fatigue—doing nothing. But this

inflexible taciturnity set the whole family, as usual, a wondering: as

Will seldom enters the house without giving one of his “one thousand and

one” stories. For my part, I began to think that the late _fracas_ at

Canton had alarmed Will for the safety of his friends, Kinglun, Chinqua,

and Consequa; or that something had gone wrong in the alterations of the

theatre; or that some new outrage at Norfolk had put him in a worry; in

short, I did not know what to think; for Will is such a universal

busybody, and meddles so much in everything going forward, that you

might as well attempt to conjecture what is going on in the North Star

as in his precious pericranium. Even Mrs. Cockloft, who, like a worthy

woman as she is, seldom troubles herself about anything in this

world—saving the affairs of her household, and the correct deportment of

her female friends—was struck with the mystery of Will’s behavior. She

happened, when he came in and went out the tenth time, to be busy

darning the bottom of one of the old red damask chairs; and

notwithstanding this is to her an affair of vast importance, yet she

could not help turning round and exclaiming—

“I wonder what can be the matter with Mr. Wizard?”

“Nothing,” replied old Christopher, “only we shall have an eruption

soon.”

The old lady did not understand a word of this, neither did she care;

she had expressed her wonder; and that, with her, is always sufficient.

I am so well acquainted with Will’s peculiarities that I can tell, even

by his whistle, when he is about an essay for our paper, as certainly as

a weather wiseacre knows that it is going to rain when he sees a pig run

squeaking about with his nose in the wind. I, therefore, laid my account

with receiving a communication from him before long; and sure enough,

the evening before last I distinguished his freemason knock at my door.

I have seen many wise men in my time, philosophers, mathematicians,

astronomers, politicians, editors, and almanac-makers; but never did I

see a man look half so wise as did my friend Wizard on entering the

room. Had Lavater beheld him at that moment, he would have set him down,

to a certainty, as a fellow who had just discovered the longitude or the

philosopher’s stone.

Without saying a word, he handed me a roll of paper; after which he

lighted his cigar, sat down, crossed his legs, folded his arms, and,

elevating his nose to an angle of about forty-five degrees, began to

smoke like a steam engine—Will delights in the picturesque. On opening

his budget, and perceiving the motto, it struck me that Will had brought

me one of his confounded Chinese manuscripts, and I was forthwith going

to dismiss it with indignation; but accidentally seeing the name of our

oracle, the sage Linkum, of whose inestimable folios we pride ourselves

upon being the sole possessors, I began to think the better of it, and

looked round to Will to express approbation. I shall never forget the

figure he cut at that moment! He had watched my countenance, on opening

his manuscript, with the argus eyes of an author: and, perceiving some

tokens of disapprobation, began, according to custom, to puff away at

his cigar with such vigor that in a few minutes he had entirely involved

himself in smoke, except his nose and one foot which were just visible,

the latter wagging with great velocity. I believe I have hinted

before—at least I ought to have done so—that Will’s nose is a very

goodly nose; to which it may be as well to add that, in his voyages

under the tropics, it has acquired a copper complexion, which renders it

very brilliant and luminous. You may imagine what a sumptuous appearance

it made, projecting boldly, like the celebrated _promontorium nasidium_

at Samos, with a lighthouse upon it, and surrounded on all sides with

smoke and vapor. Had my gravity been, like the Chinese philosopher’s,

“within one degree of absolute frigidity,” here would have been a trial

for it. I could not stand it, but burst into such a laugh as I do not

indulge in above once in a hundred years. This was too much for Will; he

emerged from his cloud, threw his cigar into the fire-place, and strode

out of the room, pulling up his breeches, muttering something which, I

verily believe, was nothing more than a horrible long Chinese

malediction.

He, however, left his manuscript behind him, which I now give to the

world. Whether he is serious on the occasion, or only bantering, no one,

I believe, can tell; for, whether in speaking or writing, there is such

an invincible gravity in his demeanor and style, that even I, who have

studied him as closely as an antiquarian studies an old manuscript or

inscription, am frequently at a loss to know what the rogue would be at.

I have seen him indulge in his favorite amusement of quizzing for hours

together, without any one having the least suspicion of the matter,

until he would suddenly twist his phiz into an expression that baffles

all description, thrust his tongue in his cheek, and blow up in a laugh

almost as loud as the shout of the Romans on a certain occasion, which

honest Plutarch avers frightened several crows to such a degree that

they fell down stone dead into the Campus Martius. Jeremy Cockloft the

younger, who, like a true modern philosopher, delights in experiments

that are of no kind of use, took the trouble to measure one of Will’s

risible explosions, and declared to me that, according to accurate

measurement, it contained thirty feet square of solid laughter. What

will the professors say to this?

PLANS FOR DEFENDING OUR HARBOR.

BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

Long-fong teko buzz tor-pe-do,

Fudge——

_Confucius._

We’ll blow the villains all sky-high;

But do it with econo——my.

_Link. Fid._

Surely never was a town more subject to midsummer fancies and dog-day

whimwhams than this most excellent of cities; our notions, like our

diseases, seem all epidemic; and no sooner does a new disorder or a new

freak seize one individual but it is sure to run through all the

community. This is particularly the case when the summer is at the

hottest, and everybody’s head is in a vertigo and his brain in a

ferment; ’tis absolutely necessary, then, the poor souls should have

some bubble to amuse themselves with, or they would certainly run mad.

Last year the poplar worm made its appearance most fortunately for our

citizens; and everybody was so much in horror of being poisoned, and

devoured, and so busied in making humane experiments on cats and dogs,

that we got through the summer quite comfortably; the cats had the worst

of it; every mouser of them was shaved, and there was not a whisker to

be seen in the whole sisterhood. This summer everybody has had full

employment in planning fortifications for our harbor. Not a cobbler or

tailor in the city but has left his awl and his thimble, become an

engineer outright, and aspired most magnanimously to the building of

forts and the destruction of navies! Heavens! as my friend Mustapha

would say, on what a great scale is everything in this country!

Among the various plans that have been offered, the most conspicuous is

one devised and exhibited, as I am informed, by that notable

confederacy, “The North River Society.”

Anxious to redeem their reputation from the foul suspicions that have

for a long time overclouded it, these aquatic incendiaries have come

forward, at the present alarming juncture, and announced a most potent

discovery which is to guarantee our port from the visits of any foreign

marauders. The Society have, it seems, invented a cunning machine,

shrewdly yclept a _Torpedo_,[63] by which the stoutest line of battle

ship, even a _Santissima Trinidada_, may be caught napping and

decomposed in a twinkling; a kind of submarine powder-magazine to swim

under water, like an aquatic mole, or water rat, and destroy the enemy

in the moments of unsuspicious security.

This straw tickled the noses of all our dignitaries wonderfully; for to

do our government justice, it has no objection to injuring and

exterminating its enemies in any manner—provided the thing can be done

economically.

It was determined the experiment should be tried, and an old brig was

purchased for not more than twice its value, and delivered over into the

hands of its tormentors, the North River Society, to be tortured, and

battered, and annihilated, _secundum artem_. A day was appointed for the

occasion, when all the good citizens of the wonder-loving city of Gotham

were invited to the blowing-up; like the fat innkeeper in Rabelais, who

requested all his customers to come on a certain day and see him burst.

As I have almost as great a veneration as the good Mr. Walter Shandy for

all kinds of experiments that are ingeniously ridiculous, I made very

particular mention of the one in question at the table of my friend

Christopher Cockloft; but it put the honest old gentleman in a violent

passion. He condemned it in toto as attempt to introduce a dastardly and

exterminating mode of warfare. “Already have we proceeded far enough,”

said he, “in the science of destruction; war is already invested with

sufficient horrors and calamities. Let us not increase the catalogue;

let us not, by these deadly artifices, provoke a system of insidious and

indiscriminate hostility, that shall terminate in laying our cities

desolate, and exposing our women, our children, and our infirm, to the

sword of pitiless recrimination.” Honest old cavalier!—it was evident he

did not reason as a true politician—but he felt as a Christian and

philanthropist; and that was perhaps just as well.

It may be readily supposed, that our citizens did not refuse the

invitation of the Society to the blow-up; it was the first naval action

ever exhibited in our port, and the good people all crowded to see the

British navy blown up in effigy. The young ladies were delighted with

the novelty of the show, and declared that if war could be conducted in

this manner, it would become a fashionable amusement; and the

destruction of a fleet be as pleasant as a ball or a tea-party. The old

folk were equally pleased with the spectacle—because it cost them

nothing. Dear souls, how hard was it they should be disappointed! the

brig most obstinately refused to be decomposed; the dinners were cold,

and the puddings were overboiled, throughout the renowned city of

Gotham; and its sapient inhabitants, like the honest Strasburghers, from

whom most of them are doubtless descended, who went out to see the

courteous stranger and his nose, all returned home after having

threatened to pull down the flag-staff by way of taking satisfaction for

their disappointment. By the way, there is not an animal in the world

more discriminating in its vengeance than a freeborn mob.

In the evening I repaired to friend Hogg’s, to smoke a sociable cigar,

but had scarcely entered the room when I was taken prisoner by my

friend, Mr. Ichabod Fungus; who I soon saw was at his usual trade of

prying into millstones. The old gentleman informed me that the brig had

actually blown up, after a world of maneuvering, and had nearly blown up

the Society with it; he seemed to entertain strong doubts as to the

objects of the Society in the invention of these infernal

machines—hinted a suspicion of their wishing to set the river on fire,

and that he should not be surprised, on waking one of these mornings, to

find the Hudson in a blaze.

“Not that I disapprove of the plan,” said he, “provided it has the end

in view which they profess; no, no, an excellent plan of defense; no

need of batteries, forts, frigates, and gun-boats; observe, sir, all

that’s necessary is that the ships must come to anchor in a convenient

place; watch must be asleep, or so complacent as not to disturb any

boats paddling about them—fair wind and tide—no moonlight—machines

well-directed—mustn’t flash in the pan—bang’s the word, and the vessel’s

blown up in a moment!”

“Good,” said I, “you remind me of a lubberly Chinese who was flogged by

an honest captain of my acquaintance, and who, on being advised to

retaliate, exclaimed: ‘Hi yah! s’pose two men hold fast him captain, den

very mush me bamboo he!’”

The old gentleman grew a little crusty, and insisted that I did not

understand him; all that was requisite to render the effect certain was,

that the enemy should enter into the project: or, in other words, be

agreeable to the measure; so that if the machine did not come to the

ship, the ship should go to the machine; by which means he thought the

success of the machine would be inevitable—provided it struck fire.

“But do not you think,” said I, doubtingly, “that it would be rather

difficult to persuade the enemy into such an agreement? Some people have

an invincible antipathy to being blown up.”

“Not at all, not at all,” replied he, triumphantly; “got an excellent

notion for that; do with them as we have done with the brig—buy all the

vessels we mean to destroy, and blow ’em up as best suits our

convenience. I have thought deeply on that subject, and have calculated

to a certainty that if our funds hold out we may, in this way, destroy

the whole British navy—by contract.”

By this time all the quidnuncs of the room had gathered around us, each

pregnant with some mighty scheme for the salvation of his country. One

pathetically lamented that we had no such men among us as the famous

Toujoursdort and Grossitout; who, when the celebrated Captain

Trenchement made war against the city of Kalacahabalaba, utterly

discomfited the great king, Bigstaff, and blew up his whole army by

sneezing. Another imparted a sage idea, which seems to have occupied

more heads than one; that is, that the best way of fortifying the harbor

was to ruin it at once—choke the channel with rocks and blocks; strew it

with _chevaux-de-frise_ and torpedoes, and make it like a

nursery-garden, full of men-traps and spring-guns. No vessel would then

have the temerity to enter our harbor; we should not even dare to

navigate it ourselves. Or, if no cheaper way could be devised, let

Governor’s Island be raised by levers and pulleys—floated with empty

casks, etc., towed down to the Narrows, and dropped plump in the very

mouth of the harbor!

“But,” said I, “would not the prosecution of these whimwhams be rather

expensive and dilatory?”

“Pshaw!” cried the other, “what’s a million of money to an experiment?

The true spirit of our economy requires that we should spare no expense

in discovering the cheapest mode of defending ourselves; and then if all

these modes should fail, why, you know the worst we have to do is to

return to the old-fashioned humdrum mode of forts and batteries.”

“By which time,” cried I, “the arrival of the enemy may have rendered

their erection superfluous.”

A shrewd old gentleman who stood listening by, with a mischievously

equivocal look, observed that the most effectual mode of repulsing a

fleet from our ports would be to administer them a proclamation from

time to time, till it operated.

Unwilling to leave the company without demonstrating my patriotism and

ingenuity, I communicated a plan of defense; which, in truth, was

suggested long since by that infallible oracle, Mustapha, who had as

clear a head for cobweb weaving as ever dignified the shoulders of a

projector. He thought the most effectual mode would be to assemble all

the _slang-whangers_, great and small, from all parts of the State, and

marshal them at the Battery, where they should be exposed pointblank to

the enemy, and form a tremendous body of scolding infantry, similar to

the _poissards_, or doughty champions of Billingsgate. They should be

exhorted to fire away without pity or remorse, in sheets, half-sheets,

columns, handbills, or squibs; great cannon, little cannon, pica, German

text, stereotype, and to run their enemies through and through with

sharp-pointed italics. They should have orders to show no quarter—to

blaze away in their loudest epithets—“_miscreants!_” “_murderers!_”

“_barbarians!_” “_pirates!_” “_robbers!_” “BLACKGUARDS!” and to do away

all fear of consequences, they should be guaranteed from all dangers of

pillory, kicking, cuffing, nose-pulling, whipping-post, or prosecution

for libels. “If,” continued Mustapha, “you wish men to fight well and

valiantly, they must be allowed those weapons they have been used to

handle. Your countrymen are notoriously adroit in the management of the

tongue and the pen, and conduct all their battles by speeches or

newspapers. Adopt, therefore, the plan I have pointed out; and rely upon

it that, let any fleet, however large, be but once assailed by this

battery of slang-whangers, and if they have not entirely lost the sense

of hearing, or a regard for their own characters and feelings, they

will, at the very first fire, slip their cables, and retreat with as

much precipitation as if they had unwarily entered into the atmosphere

of the _Bohan upas_. In this manner may your wars be conducted with

proper economy; and it will cost no more to drive off a fleet than to

write up a party, or write down a bashaw with three tails.”

The sly old gentleman I have before mentioned, was highly delighted with

this plan; and proposed, as an improvement, that mortars should be

placed on the Battery, which, instead of throwing shells and such

trifles, might be charged with newspapers, Tammany addresses, etc., by

way of red-hot shot, which would undoubtedly be very potent in blowing

up any powder magazine they might chance to come in contact with. He

concluded by informing the company, that in the course of a few

evenings, he would have the honor to present them with a scheme for

loading certain vessels with newspapers, resolutions of “numerous and

respectable meetings,” and other combustibles, which vessels were to be

blown directly in the midst of the enemy by the bellows of the

slang-whangers; and he was much mistaken if they would not be more fatal

than fire-ships, bomb-ketches, gun-boats, or even torpedoes.

These are but two or three specimens of the nature and efficacy of the

innumerable plans with which this city abounds. Everybody seems charged

to the muzzle with gunpowder—every eye flashes fire-works and

torpedoes—and every corner is occupied by knots of inflammatory

projectors, not one of whom but has some preposterous mode of

destruction, which he has proved to be infallible by a previous

experiment in a tub of water!

Even Jeremy Cockloft has caught the infection, to the great annoyance of

the inhabitants of Cockloft Hall, whither he retired to make his

experiments undisturbed. At one time all the mirrors in the house were

unhung—their collected rays thrown into the hot-house, to try

Archimedes’ plan of burning-glasses; and the honest old gardener was

almost knocked down by what he mistook for a stroke of the sun, but

which turned out to be nothing more than a sudden attack of one of these

tremendous jack-o’-lanterns. It became dangerous to walk through the

court-yard for fear of an explosion; and the whole family was thrown

into absolute distress and consternation, by a letter from the old

housekeeper to Mrs. Cockloft, informing her of his having blown up a

favorite Chinese gander, which I had brought from Canton, as he was

majestically sailing in the duck-pond.

“In the multitude of counselors there is safety;” if so, the defenseless

city of Gotham has nothing to apprehend; but much do I fear that so many

excellent and infallible projects will be presented, that we shall be at

a loss which to adopt; and the peaceable inhabitants fare like a famous

projector of my acquaintance, whose house was unfortunately plundered

while he was contriving a patent lock to secure his door.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

A RETROSPECT; OR, “WHAT YOU WILL.”

Lolling in my elbow-chair this fine summer noon, I feel myself

insensibly yielding to that genial feeling of indolence the season is so

well fitted to inspire. Every one who is blessed with a little of the

delicious languor of disposition that delights in repose, must often

have sported among the fairy scenes, the golden visions, the voluptuous

reveries, that swim before the imagination at such moments, and which so

much resemble those blissful sensations a Mussulman enjoys after his

favorite indulgence of opium, which Will Wizard declares can be compared

to nothing but “swimming in an ocean of peacocks’ feathers.” In such a

mood everybody must be sensible it would be idle and unprofitable for a

man to send his wits a gadding on a voyage of discovery into futurity,

or even to trouble himself with a laborious investigation of what is

actually passing under his eye. We are, at such times, more disposed to

resort to the pleasures of memory than to those of the imagination; and,

like the wayfaring traveller, reclining for a moment on his staff, had

rather contemplate the ground we have travelled, than the region which

is yet before us.

I could here amuse myself, and stultify my readers, with a most

elaborate and ingenious parallel between authors and travellers; but in

this balmy season, which makes men stupid and dogs mad, and when,

doubtless, many of our most strenuous admirers have great difficulty in

keeping awake through the day, it would be cruel to saddle them with the

formidable difficulty of putting two ideas together and drawing a

conclusion, or, in the learned phrase, forging _syllogisms in Baroco_—a

terrible undertaking for the dog days! To say the truth, my observations

were only intended to prove that this, of all others, is the most

auspicious moment, and my present, the favorable mood for indulging in a

retrospect. Whether, like certain great personages of the day, in

attempting to prove one thing, I have exposed another; or whether, like

certain other great personages, in attempting to prove a great deal, I

have proved nothing at all, I leave to my readers to decide, provided

they have the power and inclination so to do; but a _retrospect_ will I

take, notwithstanding.

I am perfectly aware that in doing this I shall lay myself open to the

charge of imitation, than which a man might be better accused of

downright housebreaking; for it has been a standing rule with many of my

illustrious predecessors, occasionally, and particularly at the

conclusion of a volume, to look over their shoulder and chuckle at the

miracles they had achieved. But, as I before professed, I am determined

to hold myself entirely independent of all manner of opinions and

criticisms, as the only method of getting on in this world in anything

like a straight line. True it is, I may sometimes seem to angle a little

for the good opinion of mankind, by giving them some excellent reasons

for doing unreasonable things; but this is merely to show them, that

although I may occasionally go wrong, it is not for want of knowing how

to go right; and here I will lay down a maxim, which will forever

entitle me to the gratitude of my inexperienced readers, namely, that a

man always gets more credit in the eyes of this naughty world for

sinning willfully than for sinning through sheer ignorance.

It will doubtless be insisted by many ingenious cavilers, who will be

meddling with what does not at all concern them, that this retrospect

should have been taken at the commencement of our second volume; it is

usual, I know: moreover it is natural. So soon as a writer has once

accomplished a volume, he forthwith becomes wonderfully increased in

attitude! he steps upon his book as upon a pedestal, and is elevated in

proportion to its magnitude. A duodecimo makes him one inch taller; an

octavo, three inches; a quarto, six; but he who has made out to swell a

folio looks down upon his fellow creatures from such a fearful height

that, ten to one, the poor man’s head is turned forever afterward. From

such a lofty situation, therefore, it is natural an author should cast

his eyes behind, and having reached the first landing-place on the

stairs of immortality, may reasonably be allowed to plead his privilege

to look back over the height he has ascended. I have deviated a little

from this venerable custom, merely that our retrospect might fall in the

dog days—of all days in the year most congenial to the indulgence of a

little self-sufficiency, inasmuch as people have then little to do but

to retire within the sphere of self, and make the most of what they find

there.

Let it not be supposed, however, that we think ourselves a whit the

wiser or better since we have finished our volume than we were before;

on the contrary, we seriously assure our readers that we were fully

possessed of all the wisdom and morality it contains at the moment we

commenced writing. It is the world which has grown wiser, not us; we

have thrown our mite into the common stock of knowledge, we have shared

our morsel with the ignorant multitude; and so far from elevating

ourselves above the world, our sole endeavor has been to raise the world

to our own level, and make it as wise as we, its disinterested

benefactors.

To a moral writer like myself, who, next to his own comfort and

entertainment, has the good of his fellow-citizens at heart, a

retrospect is but a sorry amusement. Like the industrious husbandman, he

often contemplates in silent disappointment his labors wasted on a

barren soil, or the seeds he has carefully sown, choked by a redundancy

of worthless weeds. I expected long ere this to have seen a complete

reformation in manners and morals, achieved by our united efforts. My

fancy echoed to the applauding voices of a retrieved generation; I

anticipated, with proud satisfaction, the period, not far distant, when

our work would be introduced into the academies with which every lane

and alley of our cities abounds; when our precepts would be gently

inducted into every unlucky urchin by force of birch, and my iron-bound

physiognomy, as taken by Will Wizard, be as notorious as that of Noah

Webster, junr. Esq. or his no less renowned predecessor, the illustrious

Dilworth of spelling-book immortality.[64] But, well-a-day! to let my

readers into a profound secret—the expectations of man are like the

varied hues that tinge the distant prospect; never to be realized, never

to be enjoyed but in perspective. Luckless Launcelot, that the humblest

of the many air castles thou hast erected should prove a “baseless

fabric!” Much does it grieve me to confess, that after all our lectures,

precepts, and excellent admonitions, the people of New York are nearly

as much given to backsliding and ill-nature as ever; they are just as

much abandoned to dancing and tea-drinking; and as to scandal, Will

Wizard informs me that, by a rough computation, since the last cargo of

gunpowder-tea from Canton, no less than eighteen characters have been

blown up, besides a number of others that have been wofully shattered.

The ladies still labor under the same scarcity of muslins, and delight

in flesh-colored silk stockings; it is evident, however, that our advice

has had very considerable effect on them, as they endeavor to act as

opposite to it as possible; this being what Evergreen calls female

independence. As to Straddles, they abound as much as ever in Broadway,

particularly on Sundays; and Wizard roundly asserts that he supped in

company with a knot of them a few evenings since, when they liquidated a

whole Birmingham consignment, in a batch of imperial champagne. I have,

furthermore, in the course of a month past, detected no less than three

Giblet families making their first onset toward style and gentility in

the very manner we have heretofore reprobated. Nor have our utmost

efforts been able to check the progress of that alarming epidemic, the

rage for punning, which, though doubtless originally intended merely to

ornament and enliven conversation by little sports of fancy, threatens

to overrun and poison the whole, like the baneful ivy which destroys the

useful plant it first embellished. Now I look upon a habitual punster as

a depredator upon conversation; and I have remarked sometimes one of

these offenders, sitting silent on the watch for an hour together, until

some luckless wight, unfortunately for the ease and quiet of the

company, dropped a phrase susceptible of a double meaning; when—pop, our

punster would dart out like a veteran mouser from her covert, seize the

unlucky word, and after worrying and mumbling at it until it was capable

of no further marring, relapse again into silent watchfulness, and lie

in wait for another opportunity. Even this might be borne with, by the

aid of a little philosophy; but the worst of it is, they are not content

to manufacture puns and laugh heartily at them themselves; but they

expect we should laugh with them, which I consider as an intolerable

hardship, and a flagrant imposition on good-nature. Let those gentlemen

fritter away conversation with impunity, and deal out their wits in

sixpenny bits if they please; but I beg I may have the choice of

refusing currency to their small change. I am seriously afraid, however,

that our junto is not quite free from the infection—nay, that it has

even approached so near as to menace the tranquillity of my elbow-chair;

for Will Wizard, as we were in caucus the other night, absolutely

electrified Pindar and myself with a most palpable and perplexing pun;

had it been a torpedo, it could not have more discomposed the

fraternity. Sentence of banishment was unanimously decreed; but on his

confessing that, like many celebrated wits, he was merely retailing

other men’s wares on commission, he was for that once forgiven on

condition of refraining from such diabolical practices in future. Pindar

is particularly outrageous against punsters; and quite astonished and

put me to a nonplus a day or two since, by asking abruptly “whether I

thought a punster could be a good Christian?” He followed up his

question triumphantly by offering to prove, by sound logic and

historical fact, that the Roman Empire owed its decline and fall to a

pun; and that nothing tended so much to demoralize the French nation, as

their abominable rage for _jeux de mots_.

But what, above everything else, has caused me much vexation of spirit,

and displeased me most with this stiff-necked nation is, that in spite

of all the serious and profound censures of the sage Mustapha, in his

various letters—they _will talk_!—they will still wag their tongues, and

chatter like very slang-whangers! This is a degree of obstinancy

incomprehensible in the extreme; and is another proof how alarming is

the force of habit, and how difficult it is to reduce beings, accustomed

to talk, to that state of silence which is the very acme of human

wisdom.

We can only account for these disappointments in our moderate and

reasonable expectations, by supposing the world so deeply sunk in the

mire of delinquency, that not even Hercules, were he to put his shoulder

to the axletree, would be able to extricate it. We comfort ourselves,

however, by the reflection that there are at least three good men left

in this degenerate age to benefit the world by example, should precept

ultimately fail. And borrowing, for once, an example from certain sleepy

writers who, after the first emotions of surprise at finding their

invaluable effusions neglected or despised, console themselves with the

idea that ’tis a stupid age, and look forward to posterity for redress,

we bequeath our volume to future generations—and much good may it do

them. Heaven grant they may be able to read it! for, if our fashionable

mode of education continues to improve, as of late, I am under serious

apprehensions that the period is not far distant when the discipline of

the dancing-master will supersede that of the grammarian; crotchets and

quavers supplant the alphabet: and the heels, by an antipodean maneuver,

obtain entire preeminence over the head. How does my heart yearn for

poor, dear posterity, when this work shall become unintelligible to our

grandchildren, as it seems to be their grandfathers and grandmothers.

In fact—for I love to be candid—we begin to suspect that many people

read our numbers merely for their amusement, without paying any

attention to the serious truths conveyed in every page. Unpardonable

want of penetration! not that we wish to restrict our readers in the

article of laughing, which we consider as one of the dearest

prerogatives of man, and the distinguishing characteristic which raises

him above all other animals: let them laugh, therefore, if they will,

provided they profit at the same time, and do not mistake our object. It

is one of our indisputable facts that it is easier to laugh ten follies

out of countenance than to coax, reason, or flog a man out of one. In

this odd, singular, and indescribable age,—which is neither the age of

gold, silver, iron, brass, chivalry, or _pills_, as Sir John Carr

asserts,—a grave writer who attempts to attack folly with the heavy

artillery of moral reasoning, will fare like Smollett’s honest pedant,

who clearly demonstrated by angles, etc., after the manner of Euclid,

that it was wrong to do evil—and was laughed at for his pains. Take my

word for it, a little well-applied ridicule, like Hannibal’s application

of vinegar to rocks, will do more with certain hard heads and obdurate

hearts, than all the logic or demonstrations in Longinus or Euclid. But

the people of Gotham, wise souls! are so much accustomed to see Morality

approach them clothed in formidable wigs and sable garbs, “with leaden

eye that loves the ground,” that they can never recognize her when,

drest in gay attire, she comes tripping toward them with smiles and

sunshine in her countenance.—Well, let the rogues remain in happy

ignorance, for “ignorance is bliss” as the poet says—and I put as

implicit faith in poetry as I do in the almanac or the newspaper. We

will improve them, without their being the wiser for it, and they shall

become better in spite of their teeth, and without their having the

least suspicion of the reformation working within them.

Among all our manifold grievances, however, still some small but vivid

rays of sunshine occasionally brighten along our path; cheering our

steps, and inviting us to persevere.

The public have paid some little regard to a few articles of our advice;

they have purchased our numbers freely—so much the better for our

publisher; they have read them attentively—so much the better for

themselves. The melancholy fate of my dear aunt Charity has had a

wonderful effect; and I have now before me a letter from a gentleman who

lives opposite to a couple of old ladies, remarkable for the interest

they took in his affairs; his apartments were absolutely in a state of

blockade, and he was on the point of changing his lodgings, or

capitulating, until the appearance of our ninth number, which he

immediately sent over with his compliments. The good ladies took the

hint, and have scarcely appeared at their window since. As to the wooden

gentlemen, our friend, Miss Sparkle, assures me, they are wonderfully

improved by our criticisms, and sometimes venture to make a remark, or

attempt a pun in company, to the great edification of all who happen to

understand them. As to the red shawls, they are entirely discarded from

the fair shoulders of our ladies—ever since the last importation of

finery—nor has any lady, since the cold weather, ventured to expose her

elbows to the admiring gaze of scrutinizing passengers. But there is one

victory we have achieved which has given us more pleasure than to have

written down the whole administration: I am assured, from unquestionable

authority, that our young ladies—doubtless in consequence of our weighty

admonitions—have not once indulged in that intoxicating, inflammatory,

and whirligig dance, the waltz—ever since hot weather commenced. True it

is, I understand an attempt was made to exhibit it by some of the sable

fair ones at the last African ball, but it was highly disapproved of by

all the respectable elderly ladies present.

These are sweet sources of comfort to atone for the many wrongs and

misrepresentations heaped upon us by the world—for even we have

experienced its ill-nature. How often have we heard ourselves reproached

for the insidious applications of the uncharitable! how often have we

been accused of emotions which never found an entrance into our bosoms!

how often have our sportive effusions been wrested to serve the purposes

of particular enmity and bitterness! Meddlesome spirits! little do they

know our disposition: we “lack gall” to wound the feelings of a single

innocent individual; we can even forgive them from the very bottom of

our souls; may they meet as ready a forgiveness from their own

consciences! Like true and independent bachelors, having no domestic

cares to interfere with our general benevolence, we consider it

incumbent upon us to watch over the welfare of society; and although we

are indebted to the world for little else than left-handed favors, yet

we feel a proud satisfaction in requiting evil with good, and the sneer

of illiberality with the unfeigned smile of good humor. With these

mingled motives of selfishness and philanthropy we commenced our work,

and if we cannot solace ourselves with the consciousness of having done

much good, yet there is still one pleasing consolation left, which the

world can neither give nor take away. There are moments—lingering

moments of listless indifference and heavy-hearted despondency—when our

best hopes and affections slipping, as they sometimes will, from their

hold on those objects to which they usually cling for support, seem

abandoned on the wide waste of cheerless existence, without a place to

cast anchor; without a shore in view to excite a single wish, or to give

a momentary interest to contemplation. We look back with delight upon

many of these moments of mental gloom, whiled away by the cheerful

exercise of our pen, and consider every such triumph over the spleen as

retarding the furrowing hand of time in its insidious encroachments on

our brows. If, in addition to our own amusement, we have, as we jogged

carelessly laughing along, brushed away one tear of dejection and called

forth a smile in its place—if we have brightened the pale countenance of

a child of sorrow,—we shall feel almost as much joy and rejoicing as a

slang-whanger does when he bathes his pen in the heart’s blood of a

patron and benefactor, or sacrifices one more illustrious victim on the

altar of party animosity.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

It is our misfortune to be frequently pestered, in our peregrinations

about this blessed city, by certain critical gad-flies; who buzz around

and merely attack the skin, without ever being able to penetrate the

body. The reputation of our promising _protégé_, Jeremy Cockloft the

younger, has been assailed by these skin-deep critics; they have

questioned his claims to originality, and even hinted that the ideas for

his New Jersey Tour were borrowed from a late work entitled “My

Pocket-book.” As there is no literary offense more despicable in the

eyes of the trio than borrowing, we immediately called Jeremy to an

account; when he proved, by the dedication of the work in question, that

it was first published in London in March, 1807; and that his “Stranger

in New Jersey” had made its appearance on the 24th of the preceding

February.

We were on the point of acquitting Jeremy with honor on the ground that

it was impossible, knowing as he is, to borrow from a foreign work one

month before it was in existence; when Will Wizard suddenly took up the

cudgels for the critics, and insisted that nothing was more probable,

for he recollected reading of an ingenious Dutch author who plainly

convicted the ancients of stealing from his labors!—So much for

criticism.

* * * * *

We have received a host of friendly and admonitory letters from

different quarters, and among the rest a very loving epistle from George

town, Columbia, signed Teddy M’Gundy, who addresses us by the name of

Saul M’Gundy, and insists that we are descended from the same Irish

progenitors, and nearly related. As friend Teddy seems to be an honest,

merry rogue, we are sorry that we cannot admit his claims to kindred; we

thank him, however, for his good-will, and should he ever be inclined to

favor us with another epistle, we will hint to him, and at the same time

to our other numerous correspondents, that their communications will be

infinitely more acceptable if they will just recollect Tom Shuffleton’s

advice, “pay the post-boy, Muggins.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

NO. XIV.—SATURDAY, SEPT. 16, 1807.

LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN,

TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF

TRIPOLI.

Health and joy to the friend of my heart! May the angel of peace ever

watch over thy dwelling, and the star of prosperity shed its benignant

lustre on all thy undertakings. Far other is the lot of thy captive

friend: his brightest hopes extend but to a lengthened period of weary

captivity, and memory only adds to the measure of his griefs, by holding

up a mirror which reflects with redoubled charms the hours of past

felicity. In midnight slumbers my soul holds sweet converse with the

tender objects of its affections: it is then the exile is restored to

his country: it is then the wide waste of waters that rolls between us

disappears, and I clasp to my bosom the companion of my youth; I awake

and find it but a vision of the night. The sigh will rise; the tear of

dejection will steal adown my cheek; I fly to my pen, and strive to

forget myself, and my sorrows, in conversing with my friend.

In such a situation, my good Asem, it cannot be expected that I should

be able so wholly to abstract myself from my own feelings, as to give

thee a full and systematic account of the singular people among whom my

disastrous lot has been cast. I can only find leisure, from my own

individual sorrows, to entertain thee occasionally with some of the most

prominent features of their character; and now and then a solitary

picture of their most preposterous eccentricities.

I have before observed, that among the distinguishing characteristics of

the people of this logocracy, is their invincible love of talking; and,

that I could compare the nation to nothing but a mighty windmill. Thou

art doubtless at a loss to conceive how this mill is supplied with

grist; or, in other words, how it is possible to furnish subjects to

supply the perpetual motion of so many tongues.

The genius of the nation appears in its highest lustre in this

particular in the discovery, or rather the application of a subject

which seems to supply an inexhaustible mine of words. It is nothing

more, my friend, than “politics”; a word which, I declare to thee, has

perplexed me almost as much as the redoubtable one of economy. On

consulting a dictionary of this language, I found it denoted the science

of government; and the relations, situations, and dispositions of states

and empires. Good! thought I; for a people who boast of governing

themselves, there could not be a more important subject of

investigation. I therefore listened attentively, expecting to hear from

“the most enlightened people under the sun,”—for so they modestly term

themselves,—sublime disputations on the science of legislation, and

precepts of political wisdom that would not have disgraced our great

prophet and legislator himself!—but, alas, Asem! how continually are my

expectations disappointed! how dignified a meaning does this word bear

in the dictionary; how despicable its common application; I find it

extending to every contemptible discussion of local animosity, and every

petty altercation of insignificant individuals. It embraces, alike, all

manner of concerns; from the organization of a divan, the election of a

bashaw, or the levying of an army, to the appointment of a constable,

the personal disputes of two miserable slang-whangers, the cleaning of

the streets, or the economy of a dirt cart. A couple of politicians will

quarrel, with the most vociferous pertinacity, about the character of a

bum-bailiff whom nobody cares for; or the deportment of a little great

man whom nobody knows; and this is called talking politics; nay! it is

but few days since that I was annoyed by a debate between two of my

fellow lodgers, who were magnanimously employed in condemning a luckless

wight to infamy, because he chose to wear a red coat, and to entertain

certain erroneous opinions some thirty years ago. Shocked at their

illiberal and vindictive spirit, I rebuked them for thus indulging in

slander and uncharitablenesses, about the color of a coat, which had

doubtless for many years been worn out; or the belief in errors, which

in all probability had been long since atoned for and abandoned; but

they justified themselves by alleging that they were only engaged in

politics, and exerting that liberty of speech, and freedom of

discussion, which was the glory and safeguard of their national

independence. “O Mahomet!” thought I, “what a country must that be,

which builds its political safety on ruined characters and the

persecution of individuals!”

Into what transports of surprise and incredulity am I continually

betrayed, as the character of this eccentric people gradually develops

itself to my observations. Every new research increases the perplexities

in which I am involved, and I am more than ever at a loss where to place

them in the scale of my estimation. It is thus the philosopher, in

pursuing truth through the labyrinth of doubt, error, and

misrepresentation, frequently finds himself bewildered in the mazes of

contradictory experience; and almost wishes he could quietly retrace his

wandering steps, steal back into the path of honest ignorance, and jog

on once more in contented indifference.

How fertile in these contradictions is this extensive logocracy! Men of

different nations, manners, and languages, live in this country in the

most perfect harmony; and nothing is more common than to see

individuals, whose respective governments are at variance, taking each

other by the hand and exchanging the offices of friendship. Nay, even on

the subject of religion, which, as it affects our dearest interests, our

earliest opinions and prejudices, some warmth and heart-burnings might

be excused, which, even in our enlightened country, is so fruitful in

difference between man and man!—even religion occasions no dissension

among these people; and it has even been discovered, by one of their

sages, that believing in one god or twenty gods “neither breaks a man’s

leg nor picks his pocket.”[65] The idolatrous Persian may here bow down

before his everlasting fire, and prostrate himself toward the glowing

east. The Chinese may adore his Fo, or his Josh; the Egyptian his stork;

and the Mussulman practice, unmolested, the divine precepts of our

immortal prophet. Nay, even the forlorn, abandoned Atheist, who lies

down at night without committing himself to the protection of Heaven,

and rises in the morning without returning thanks for his safety! who

hath no deity but his own will; whose soul, like the sandy desert, is

barren of every flower of hope to throw a solitary bloom over the dead

level of sterility and soften the wide extent of desolation; whose

darkened views extend not beyond the horizon that bounds his cheerless

existence; to whom no blissful perspective opens beyond the grave—even

he is suffered to indulge in his desperate opinions, without exciting

one other emotion than pity or contempt. But this mild and tolerating

spirit reaches not beyond the pale of religion: once differ in politics,

in mere theories, visions, and chimeras, the growth of interest, of

folly, or madness, and deadly warfare ensues; every eye flashes fire,

every tongue is loaded with reproach, and every heart is filled with

gall and bitterness.

At this period several unjustifiable and serious injuries on the part of

the barbarians of the British Island, have given a new impulse to the

tongue and the pen, and occasioned a terrible wordy fever. Do not

suppose, my friend, that I mean to condemn any proper and dignified

expression of resentment for injuries. On the contrary, I love to see a

word before a blow; for “in the fullness of the heart the tongue

moveth.” But my long experience has convinced me, that people who talk

the most about taking satisfaction for affronts, generally content

themselves with talking instead of revenging the insult; like the street

women of this country, who after a prodigious scolding, quietly sit down

and fan themselves cool as fast as possible. But to return: the rage for

talking has now, in consequence of the agressions I alluded to,

increased to a degree far beyond what I have observed heretofore. In the

gardens of His Highness of Tripoli are fifteen thousand bee-hives, three

hundred peacocks, and a prodigious number of parrots and baboons; and

yet I declare to thee, Asem, that their buzzing, and squalling, and

chattering is nothing compared to the wild uproar and war of words, now

raging within the bosom of this mighty and distracted logocracy.

Politics pervade every city, every village, every temple, every porter

house: the universal question is, “what is the news?” This is a kind of

challenge to political debate; and as no two men think exactly alike,

’tis ten to one, but before they finish, all the polite phrases in the

language are exhausted by way of giving fire and energy to argument.

What renders this talking fever more alarming is, that the people appear

to be in the unhappy state of a patient whose palate nauseates the

medicine best calculated for the cure of his disease, and seem anxious

to continue the full enjoyment of their chattering epidemic. They alarm

each other by direful reports and fearful apprehensions; like I have

seen a lot of old wives in this country entertain themselves with

stories of ghosts and goblins until their imaginations were in a most

agonizing panic. Every day begets some new tale, big with agitation; and

the busy goddess, Rumor, to speak in the poetic language of the

Christians, is constantly in motion. She mounts her rattling

stage-wagon, and gallops about the country, freighted with a load of

“hints,” “informations,” “extracts of letters from respectable

gentlemen,” “observations of respectable correspondents,” and

“unquestionable authorities;”—which her high-priests, the

slang-whangers, retail to their sapient followers, with all the

solemnity, and all the authenticity of oracles. True it is, the

unfortunate slang-whangers are sometimes at a loss for food, to supply

this insatiable appetite for intelligence; and are, not unfrequently,

reduced to the necessity of manufacturing dishes suited to the taste of

the times, to be served up as morning and evening repasts to their

disciples.

When the hungry politician is thus full charged with important

information, he sallies forth to give due exercise to his tongue; and

tells all he knows, to everybody he meets. Now it is a thousand to one

that every person he meets is just as wise as himself, charged with the

same articles of information, and possessed of the same violent

inclination to give it vent; for in this country every man adopts some

particular slang-whanger, as the standard of his judgment, and reads

everything he writes if he reads nothing else; which is doubtless the

reason why the people of this logocracy are so marvelously enlightened.

So away they tilt at each other with their borrowed lances, advancing to

the combat with the opinions and speculations of their respective

slang-whangers, which, in all probability, are diametrically opposite.

Here then arises as fair an opportunity for a battle of words as heart

could wish; and thou mayst rely upon it, Asem, they do not let it pass

unimproved. They sometimes begin with argument; but in process of time,

as the tongue begins to wax wanton, other auxiliaries become necessary;

recrimination commences; reproach follows close at its heels; from

political abuse they proceed to personal, and thus often is a friendship

of years trampled down by this contemptible enemy, this gigantic dwarf

of POLITICS, the mongrel issue of groveling ambition and aspiring

ignorance!

There would be but little harm, indeed, in all this, if it ended merely

in a broken head; for this might soon be healed, and the scar, if any

remained, might serve as a warning ever after against the indulgence of

political intemperance; at the worst, the loss of such heads as these

would be a gain to the nation. But the evil extends far deeper; it

threatens to impair all social intercourse, and even to sever the sacred

union of family and kindred. The convivial table is disturbed; the

cheerful fireside is invaded; the smile of social hilarity is chased

away; the bond of social love is broken by the everlasting intrusion of

this fiend of contention, who lurks in the sparkling bowl, crouches by

the fireside, in the friendly circle, infests every avenue to pleasure;

and, like the scowling incubus, sits on the bosom of society, pressing

down and smothering every throb and pulsation of liberal philanthropy.

But thou wilt perhaps ask, “What can these people dispute about? One

would suppose that, being all free and equal, they would harmonize as

brothers; children of the same parent, and equal heirs of the same

inheritance.” This theory is most exquisite, my good friend, but in

practice it turns out the very dream of a madman. Equality, Asem, is one

of the most consummate scoundrels that ever crept from the brain of a

political juggler—a fellow who thrusts his hand into the pocket of

honest industry, or enterprising talent, and squanders their hard-earned

profits on profligate idleness or indolent stupidity. There will always

be an inequality among mankind so long as a portion of it is enlightened

and industrious, and the rest idle and ignorant. The one will acquire a

larger share of wealth, and its attendant comforts, refinements, and

luxuries of life, and the influence and power which those will always

possess who have the greatest ability of administering to the

necessities of their fellow creatures. These advantages will inevitably

excite envy; and envy as inevitably begets ill-will—hence arises that

eternal warfare which the lower orders of society are waging against

those who have raised themselves by their own merits, or have been

raised by the merits of their ancestors, above the common level. In a

nation possessed of quick feelings and impetuous passions, the hostility

might engender deadly broils and bloody commotions; but here it merely

vents itself in high-sounding words, which lead to continual breaches of

decorum, or in the insidious assassination of character, and a restless

propensity among the base to blacken every reputation which is fairer

than their own.

I cannot help smiling, sometimes, to see the solicitude with which the

people of America, so called from the country having been first

discovered by Christopher Columbus, battle about them when any election

takes place, as if they had the least concern in the matter, or were to

be benefited by an exchange of bashaws; they really seem ignorant that

none but the bashaws and their dependents are at all interested in the

event; and that the people at large will not find their situation

altered in the least. I formerly gave thee an account of an election

which took place under my eye. The result has been that the people, as

some of the slang-whangers say, have obtained a glorious triumph, which,

however, is flatly denied by the opposite slang-whangers, who insist

that their party is composed of the true sovereign people; and that the

others are all jacobins, Frenchmen, and Irish rebels. I ought to apprise

thee that the last is a term of great reproach here; which, perhaps,

thou wouldst not otherwise imagine, considering that it is not many

years since this very people were engaged in a revolution; the failure

of which would have subjected them to the same ignominious epithet, and

a participation in which is now the highest recommendation to public

confidence. By Mahomet, but it cannot be denied that the consistency of

this people, like everything else appertaining to them, is on a

prodigious great scale! To return, however, to the event of the

election. The people triumphed; and much good has it done them. I, for

my part expected to see wonderful changes, and most magical

metamorphoses. I expected to see the people all rich, that they would be

all gentleman bashaws, riding in their coaches and faring sumptuously

every day, emancipated from toil, and reveling in luxurious ease. Wilt

thou credit me, Asem, when I declare unto thee, that everything remains

exactly in the same state it was before the last wordy campaign? except

a few noisy retainers who have crept into office, and a few noisy

patriots, on the other side, who have been kicked out, there is not the

least difference. The laborer toils for his daily support; the beggar

still lives on the charity of those who have any charity to bestow; and

the only solid satisfaction the multitude have reaped is, that they have

got a new governor, or bashaw, whom they will praise, idolize, and exalt

for a while, and afterward, notwithstanding the sterling merits he

really possesses, in compliance with immemorial custom, they will abuse,

calumniate, and trample him under foot.

Such, my dear Asem, is the way in which the wise people of “the most

enlightened country under the sun,” are amused with straws, and puffed

up with mighty conceits; like a certain fish I have seen here, which

having his belly tickled for a short time, will swell and puff himself

up to twice his usual size, and become a mere bladder of wind and

vanity.

The blessing of a true Mussulman light on thee, good Asem; ever, while

thou livest, be true to thy prophet; and rejoice that, though the

boasting political chatterers of this logocracy cast upon thy countrymen

the ignominious epithet of slaves, thou livest in a country where the

people instead of being at the mercy of a tyrant with a million of

heads, have nothing to do but submit to the will of a bashaw of only

three tails.

Ever thine,

MUSTAPHA.

COCKLOFT HALL.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

Those who pass their time immured in the smoke of the city, amid the

rattling of carts, the brawling of the multitude, and the variety of

discordant sounds that prey insensibly upon the nerves, and beget a

weariness of the spirits, can alone understand and feel that expansion

of the heart, that physical renovation which a citizen experiences when

he steals forth from his dusty prison, to breathe the free air of

heaven, and enjoy the clear face of nature. Who that has rambled by the

side of one of our majestic rivers, at the hour of sunset, when the

wildly romantic scenery around is softened and tinted by the voluptuous

mist of evening; when the bold and swelling outlines of the distant

mountain seem melting into the glowing horizon, and a rich mantle of

refulgence is thrown over the whole expanse of the heavens, but must

have felt how abundant is nature in sources of pure enjoyment; how

luxuriant in all that can enliven the senses or delight the imagination.

The jocund zephyr full freighted with native fragrance, sues sweetly to

the senses; the chirping of the thousand varieties of insects with which

our woodlands abound forms a concert of simple melody; even the barking

of the farm dog, the lowing of the cattle, the tinkling of their bells,

and the strokes of the woodman’s axe from the opposite shore, seem to

partake of the softness of the scene, and fall tunefully upon the ear;

while the voice of the villager, chanting some rustic ballad, swells

from a distance, in the semblance of the very music of harmonious love.

At such times I am conscious of the influence of nature upon the heart;

a hallowed calm is diffused over my senses; I cast my eyes around, and

every object is serene, simple, and beautiful; no warring passion, no

discordant string, there vibrates to the touch of ambition,

self-interest, hatred, or revenge; I am at peace with the whole world,

and hail all mankind as friends and brothers. Blissful moments! ye

recall the careless days of my boyhood, when mere existence was

happiness, when hope was certainty, this world a paradise, and every

woman a ministering angel! Surely man was designed for a tenant of the

universe, instead of being pent up in these dismal cages, these dens of

strife, disease, and discord. We were created to range the fields, to

sport among the groves, to build castles in the air, and have every one

of them realized!

A whole legion of reflections like these insinuated themselves into my

mind, and stole me from the influence of the cold realities before me,

as I took my accustomed walk a few weeks since on the Battery. Here,

watching the splendid mutations of one of our summer skies, which

emulated the boasted glories of an Italian sunset, I all at once

discovered that it was but pack up my portmanteau, bid adieu for awhile

to my elbow-chair, and in a little time I should be transported from the

region of smoke, and noise, and dust, to the enjoyment of a far sweeter

prospect and a brighter sky. The next morning I was off full tilt to

Cockloft Hall, leaving my man Pompey to follow at his leisure with my

baggage. I love to indulge in rapid transitions, which are prompted by

the quick impulse of the moment; ’tis the only mode of guarding against

that intruding and deadly foe to all parties of pleasure—anticipation.

Having now made good my retreat until the black frosts commence, it is

but a piece of civility due to my readers, who I trust are, ere this, my

friends, to give them a proper introduction to my present residence. I

do this as much to gratify them as myself; well knowing a reader is

always anxious to learn how his author is lodged, whether in a garret, a

cellar, a hovel, or a palace; at least an author is generally vain

enough to think so; and an author’s vanity ought sometimes to be

gratified. Poor devil! it is often the only gratification he ever tastes

in this world!

Cockloft Hall is the country residence of the family, or rather the

paternal mansion; which, like the mother country, sends forth whole

colonies to people the face of the earth. Pindar whimsically denominates

it the family hive! and there is at least as much truth as humor in my

cousin’s epithet; for many a swarm has it produced. I don’t recollect

whether I have at any time mentioned to my readers, for I seldom look

back on what I have written, that the fertility of the Cocklofts is

proverbial. The female members of the family are most incredibly

fruitful; and to use a favorite phrase of old Cockloft, who is

excessively addicted to backgammon, they seldom fail “to throw doublets

every time.” I myself have known three or four very industrious young

men reduced to great extremities by some of these capital breeders;

Heaven smiled upon their union, and enriched them with a numerous and

hopeful offspring, who eat them out of doors.