she might know who they were. If she heard a story | utive, and pitiful proportions, arrive at neighbour about any of her acquaintance, she would, forthwith, Pension's door. He was dressed in white, with a set off full sail and never rest until, to use her usual little pinched-up cocked hat; he seemed to shake in expression, she had got "to the bottom of it;" which the wind, and every blast that went over him whistled meant nothing more than telling it to every body through his bones and threatened instant annihila she knew. tion. This embodied spirit-of-famine was followed by three carts, lumbered with crazy trunks, chests band-boxes, bidets, medicine-chests, parrots, and monkeys; and at his heels ran a yelping pack of little black-nosed pug dogs. This was the one thing wanting to fill up the measure of my aunt Charity's afflictions; she could not conceive, for the soul of her, who this mysterious little apparition could be that made so great a display; what he could possibly do with so much baggage, and particularly with his parrots and monkeys; or how so small a carcass could have occasion for so many trunks of clothes. Honest soul! she had never had a peep into a Frenchman's wardrobe; that depôt of old coats, hats, and breeches, of the growth of every fashion he has followed in his life.

I remember one night my aunt Charity happened to hear a most precious story about one of her good friends, but unfortunately too late to give it immediate circulation. It made her absolutely miserable; and she hardly slept a wink all night, for fear her bosom-friend, Mrs. SIPKINS, should get the start of her in the morning and blow the whole affair. You must know there was always a contest between these two ladies, who should first give currency to the good-natured things said about every body; and this unfortunate rivalship at length proved fatal to their long and ardent friendship. My aunt got up full two hours that morning before her usual time; put on her pompadour tafeta gown, and sallied forth to lament the misfortune of her dear friend. Would you believe it !—wherever she went Mrs. Sipkins had anticipated her; and, instead of being listened to with uplifted hands and open-mouthed wonder, my unhappy aunt was obliged to sit down quietly and listen to the whole affair, with numerous additions, alterations, and amendments!--now this was too bad; it would almost have provoked Patient Grizzle or a saint:—it was too much for my aunt, who kept her bed for three days afterwards, with a cold, as she pretended; but I have no doubt it was owing to this affair of Mrs. Siplins, to whom she never would be reconciled.

But I pass over the rest of my aunt Charity's life, checquered with the various calamities and misfortunes and mortifications incident to those worthy old gentlewomen who have the domestic cares of the whole community upon their minds; and I hasten to relate the melancholy incident that hurried her out of existence in the full bloom of antiquated virginity.

From the time of this fatal arrival, my poor aunt was in a quandary ;-all her inquiries were fruitless no one could expound the history of this mysterious stranger: she never held up her head afterwards,drooped daily, took to her bed in a fortnight, and in "one little month" I saw her quietly deposited in the family vault:-being the seventh Cockloft that has died of a whim-wham !

Take warning, my fair country-women! and you, oh, ye excellent ladies, whether married or single, who pry into other people's affairs and neglect those of your own household;-who are so busily employed in observing the faults of others that you have no time to correct your own;-remember the fate of my dear aunt Charity, and eschew the evil spirit of curiosity.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

I FIND, by perusal of our last number, that WILL In their frolicksome malice the fates had ordered WIZARD and EVERGREEN, taking advantage of my that a French boarding-house, or Pension Francaise, confinement, have been playing some of their gamas it was called, should be established directly oppo- bols. I suspected these rogues of some mal-pracsite my aunt's residence. Cruel event! unhappy tices, in consequence of their queer looks and knowaunt Charity!—it threw her into that alarming dis- ing winks whenever I came down to dinner; and of order denominated the fidgets; she did nothing but their not showing their faces at old Cockloft's for watch at the window day after day, but without be- several days after the appearance of their precious coming one whit the wiser at the end of a fortnight effusions. Whenever these two waggish fellows lay than she was at the beginning; she thought that their heads together, there is always sure to be neighbour Pension had a monstrous large family, hatched some notable piece of mischief; which, if it and somehow or other they were all men! she could tickles nobody else, is sure to make its authors merry. not imagine what business neighbour Pension fol- The public will take notice that, for the purpose of lowed to support so numerous a household; and teaching these my associates better manners, and wondered why there was always such a scraping of punishing them for their high misdemeanors, I have, fiddles in the parlour, and such a smell of onions by virtue of my authority, suspended them from all from neighbour Pension's kitchen; in short, neigh-interference in Salmagundi, until they show a proper bour Pension was continually uppermost in her degree of repentance; or I get tired of supporting thoughts, and incessantly on the outer edge of her the burthen of the work myself. I am sorry for Will, tongue. This was, I believe, the very first time she who is already sufficiently mortified in not daring to had ever failed "to get at the bottom of a thing;' come to the old house and tell his long stories and and the disappointment cost her many a sleepless smoke his segar; but Evergreen, being an old beau, night I warrant you. I have little doubt, however, may solace himself in his disgrace by trimming up that my aunt would have ferretted neighbour Pension all his old finery and making love to the little girls. out, could she have spoken or understood French; but in those times people in general could make themselves understood in plain English; and it was always a standing rule in the Cockloft family, which exists to this day, that not one of the females should learn French.

My aunt Charity had lived, at her window, for some time in vain; when one day, as she was keeping her usual look-out, and suffering all the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity, she beheld a little, meagre, wcazci-faced Frenchman, of the most forlorn, dimin

At present my right-hand man is cousin Pindar, whom I have taken into high favour. He came home the other night all in a blaze like a sky-rocketwhisked up to his room in a paroxysm of poetic inspiration, nor did we see any thing of him until late the next morning, when he bounced upon us at breakfast,

"Fire in each eye--and paper in each hand."

This is just the way with Pindar, he is like a volcano; will remain for a long time silent without

emitting a single spark, and then, all at once, burst out in a tremendous explosion of rhyme and rhapsody.

As the letters of my friend Mustapha seem to excite considerable curiosity, I have subjoined another. I do not vouch for the justice of his remarks, or the correctness of his conclusions; they are full of the blunders and errors into which strangers continually indulge, who pretend to give an account of this country before they well know the geography of the street in which they live. The copies of my friend's papers being confused and without date, I cannot pretend to give them in systematic order;-in fact, they seem now and then to treat of matters which have occurred since his departure; whether these are sly interpolations of that meddlesome wight Will Wizard, or whether honest Mustapha was gifted with the spirit of prophecy or second sight, I neither know--nor, in fact, do I care. The following seems to have been written when the Tripolitan prisoners were so much annoyed by the ragged state of their wardrobe. Mustapha feelingly depicts the embarrassments of his situation, traveller-like; makes an easy transition from his breeches to the seat of government, and incontinently abuses the whole administration; like a sapient traveller I once knew, who damned the French nation in toto-because they eat sugar with green peas.

courted by the bashaws and the great men, who de light to have me at their feasts; the honour of my company eagerly solicited by every fiddler who gives a concert; think of my chagrin at being obliged to decline the host of invitations that daily overwhelm me, merely for want of a pair of breeches! Oh, Allah! Allah! that thy disciples could come into the world all be-feathered like a bantam, or with a pair of leather breeches like the wild deer of the forest! Surely, my friend, it is the destiny of man to be for ever subjected to petty evils; which, however trifling in appearance, prey in silence on his little pittance of enjoyment, and poison those moments of sunshine which might otherwise be consecrated to happiness.

The want of a garment, thou wilt say, is easily supplied; and thou mayest suppose need only be mentioned, to be remedied at once by any tailor of the land: little canst thou conceive the impediments which stand in the way of my comfort; and still less art thou acquainted with the prodigious great scale on which every thing is transacted in this country. The nation moves most majestically slow and clumsy in the most trivial affairs, like the unwieldy elephant which makes a formidable difficulty of picking up a straw! When I hinted my necessities to the officer who has charge of myself and my companions, I expected to have them forthwith relieved; but he made an amazing long face, told me that we were prisoners of state, that we must, therefore, be clothed at the expense of government; that as no provision had been made by congress for an emergency of the

LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB kind, it was impossible to furnish me with a pair of

KELI KHAN,

CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM,

breeches, until all the sages of the nation had been convened to talk over the matter and debate upon

PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS the expediency of granting my request. Sword of

THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI.

SWEET, oh, Asem! is the memory of distant friends! like the mellow ray of a departing sun it falls tenderly yet sadly on the heart. Every hour of absence from my native land rolls heavily by, like the sandy wave of the desert; and the fair shores of my country rise blooming to my imagination, clothed in the soft, illusive charms of distance. I sigh, yet no one listens to the sigh of the captive; I shed the bitter tear of recollection, but no one sympathizes in the tear of the turbaned stranger! Think not, however, thou brother of my soul, that I complain of the horrors of my situation;-think not that my captivity is attended with the labours, the chains, the Scourges, the insults, that render slavery, with us, more dreadful than the pangs of hesitating, lingering death. Light, indeed, are the restraints on the personal freedom of thy kinsman; but who can enter into the afflictions of the mind?-who can describe the agonies of the heart? they are mutable as the clouds of the air-they are countless as the waves that divide me from my native country.

the immortal Khalid, thought I, but this is great!— this is truly sublime! All the sages of an immense logocracy assembled together to talk about my breeches! Vain mortal that I am!—I cannot but own I was somewhat reconciled to the delay, which must necessarily attend this method of clothing me, by the consideration that if they made the affair a national act, my "name must, of course, be embodied in history," and myself and my breeches flourish to immortality in the annals of this mighty empire!

"But, pray," said I, "how does it happen that a matter so insignificant should be erected into an object of such importance as to employ the representative wisdom of the nation; and what is the cause of their talking so much about a trifle?"-"Oh,” replied the officer, who acts as our slave-driver, “it all proceeds from economy. If the government did not spend ten times as much money in debating whether it was proper to supply you with breeches, as the breeches themselves would cost, the people who govern the bashaw and his divan would straightway begin to complain of their liberties beI have, of late, my dear Asem, laboured under an ing infringed; the national finances squandered! not inconvenience singularly unfortunate, and am re- a hostile slang-whanger throughout the logocracy, duced to a dilemma most ridiculously embarrassing. but would burst forth like a barrel of combustion; Why should I hide it from the companion of my and ten chances to one but the bashaw and the sages thoughts, the partner of my sorrows and my joys? of his divan would all be turned out of office toAlas! Asem, thy friend Mustapha, the invincible gether. My good Mussulman," continued he, "the captain of a ketch, is sadly in want of a pair of administration have the good of the people too much breeches! Thou wilt doubtless smile, oh, most at heart to trifle with their pockets; and they would grave Mussulman, to hear me indulge in such ar- sooner assemble and talk away ten thousand dollars, dent lamentations about a circumstance so trivial, than expend fifty silently out of the treasury; such and a want apparently so easy to be satisfied: but is the wonderful spirit of economy that pervades every little canst thou know of the mortifications attend- branch of this government.' But," said I, "how ing my necessities, and the astonishing difficulty of is it possible they can spend money in talking; supplying them. Honoured by the smiles and atten- surely words cannot be the current coin of this countions of the beautiful ladies of this city, who have try? "Truly," cried he, smiling, "your question fallen in love with my whiskers and my turban; is pertinent enough, for words indeed often supply

the place of cash among us, and many an honest very hero who frightened all our poor old women debt is paid in promises: but the fact is, the grand and young children at Derne, and fully proved himbashaw and the members of congress, or grand-self a greater man than the mother that bore him. talkers-of-the-nation, either receive a yearly salary Thus, my friend, is the whole collective wisdom of or are paid by the day." "By the nine hundred this mighty logocracy employed in somniferous detongues of the great beast in Mahomet's vision, but bates about the most trivial affairs; like I have the murder is out;-it is no wonder these honest sometimes seen a herculean mountebank exerting men talk so much about nothing, when they are all his energies in balancing a straw upon his nose. paid for talking, like day-labourers. "You are mis- Their sages behold the minutest object with the taken,' said my driver, "it is nothing but econ- microscopic eyes of a pismire; mole-hills swell into omy!" mountains, and a grain of mustard-seed will set the whole ant-hill in a hub-bub. Whether this indicates a capacious vision, or a diminutive mind, I leave thee to decide; for my part, I consider it as another proof of the great scale on which every thing is transacted in this country.