the universal prevalence of the influenza, has en-spect manner Indeed, I have had frequent occasion couraged the chieftain of our dramatic corps to to applaud the correctness with which this gentlemarshal his forces, and to commence the campaign man fulfils the parts allotted him, and consider him at a much earlier day than usual. He has been in- as one of the best general performers in the comduced to take the field thus suddenly, I am told, by pany. My friend, the cockney, found considerable the invasion of certain foreign marauders, who pitched fault with the manner in which John shoved a huge their tents at Vauxhall-Garden during the warm rock from behind the scenes; maintaining that he months; and taking advantage of his army being dis- should have put his left foot forward, and pushed it banded and dispersed in summer quarters, committed with his right hand, that being the method practised sad depredations upon the borders of his territories: by his contemporaries of the royal theatres, and uni-carrying off a considerable portion of his winter versally approved by their best critics. He also took harvest, and murdering some of his most distinguished exception to John's coat, which he pronounced too characters. short by a foot at least; particularly when he turned It is true, these hardy invaders have been reduced his back to the company. But I look upon these to great extremity by the late heavy rains, which in-objections in the same light as new readings, and jured and destroyed much of their camp-equipage; insist that John shall be allowed to manœuvre his besides spoiling the best part of their wardrobe. Two chairs and tables, shove his rocks, and wear his cities, a triumphal car, and a new moon for Cinde-skirts in that style which his genius best effects. My rella, together with the barber's boy who was em- hopes in the rising merit of this favourite actor daily ployed every night to powder and make it shine increase; and I would hint to the manager the prowhite, have been entirely washed away, and the sea priety of giving him a benefit, advertising in the usual has become very wet and mouldy; insomuch that style of play-bills, as a "springe to catch woodcocks," great apprehensions are entertained that it will never that, between the play and farce, John will MAKE A be dry enough for use. Add to this the noble county | BOW-for that night only! Paris had the misfortune to tear his corduroy breeches, in the scuffle with Romeo, by reason of the tomb being very wet, which occasioned him to slip; and he and his noble rival possessing but one poor pair of satin ones between them, were reduced to considerable shifts to keep up the dignity of their respective houses. In spite of these disadvantages, and the untoward circumstances, they continued to enact most intrepidly; performing with much ease and confidence, inasmuch as they were seldom pestered with an audience to criticise and put them out of countenance. It is rumoured that the last heavy shower absolutely dissolved the company, and that our manager has nothing further to apprehend from that quarter.

I am told that no pains have been spared to make the exhibitions of this season as splendid as possible. Several expert rat-catchers have been sent into dif ferent parts of the country to catch white mice for the grand pantomime of CINDERELLA. A nest full of little squab Cupids have been taken in the neighbourhood of Communipaw; they are as yet but half fledged, of the true Holland breed, and it is hoped will be able to fly about by the middle of October; otherwise they will be suspended about the stage by the waistband, like little alligators in an apothecary's shop, as the pantomime must positively be performed by that time. Great pains and expense have been incurred in the importation of one of the most portly pumpkins in New-England; and the public may be assured there is now one on board a vessel from New-Haven, which will contain Cinderella's coach and six with perfect ease, were the white mice even ten times as large.

The theatre opened on Wednesday last, with great eclat, as we critics say, and almost vied in brilliancy with that of my superb friend Consequa in Canton; where the castles were all ivory, the sea mother-ofpearl, the skies gold and silver leaf, and the outside Also several barrels of hail, rain, brimstone, and of the boxes inlaid with scallop shell-work. Those gunpowder, are in store for melo-dramas; of which who want a better description of the theatre, may as a number are to be played off this winter. It is furwell go and see it; and then they can judge for them-thermore whispered me that the great thunder-drum selves. For the gratification of a highly respectable class of readers, who love to see every thing on paper, I had indeed prepared a circumstantial and truly incomprehensible account of it, such as your traveller always fills his book with, and which I defy the most intelligent architect, even the great Sir Christopher Wren, to understand. I had jumbled cornices, and pilasters, and pillars, and capitals, and trigliphs, and modules, and plinths, and volutes, and perspectives, and foreshortenings, helter-skelter; and had set all the orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, &c., together by the ears, in order to work out a satisfactory description; but the manager having sent me a polite note, requesting that I would not take off the sharp edge, as he whimsically expresses it, of public curiosity, thereby diminishing the receipts of his house, I have willingly consented to oblige him, and have left my description at the store of our publisher, where any person may see it-provided he applies at a proper hour.

has been new braced, and an expert performer on that instrument engaged, who will thunder in plain English, so as to be understood by the most illiterate hearer. This will be infinitely preferable to the miserable Italian thunderer, employed last winter by Mr. Ciceri, who performed in such an unnatural and outlandish tongue, that none but the scholars of signor Da Ponte could understand him. It will be a further gratification to the patriotic audience to know, that the present thunderer is a fellow-countryman, born at Dunderbarrack, among the echoes of the Highlands;-and that he thunders with peculiar emphasis and pompous enunciation, in the true style of a fourth of July orator.

In addition to all these additions, the manager has provided an entire new snow-storm; the very sight of which will he quite sufficient to draw a shawl over every naked bosom in the theatre; the snow is perfectly fresh, having been manufactured last August. N. B. The outside of the theatre has been orna

I cannot refrain here from giving vent to the satis-mented with a new chimney!! faction I received from the excellent performances of the different actors, one and all; and particularly the gentlemen who shifted the scenes, who acquitted themselves throughout with great celerity, dignity, pathos, and effect. Nor must I pass over the peculiar merits of my friend JOHN, who gallanted off the chairs and tables in the most dignified and circum

No. XV.-THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1807. pearance roused him; he grasped my hand with

SKETCHES FROM NATURE.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

his usual warmth, and with a tremulous but close pressure, which spoke that his heart entered into the salutation. After a number of affectionate inquiries and felicitations, such as friendship, not form, dictated, he seemed to relapse into his former flow of thought, and to resume the chain of ideas my appearance had broken for a moment.

"I was reflecting," said he, "my dear Anthony, upon some observations I made in our last number; and considering whether the sight of objects once dear to the affections, or of scenes where we have passed different happy periods of early life, really occasions most enjoyment or most regret. Renewing rated objects, revives, it is true, the recollection of former pleasures, and touches the tenderest feelings of the heart; like the flavour of a delicious beverage will remain upon the palate long after the cup has parted from the lips. But on the other hand, my friend, these same objects are too apt to awaken us to a keener recollection of what we were, when they erst delighted us; to provoke a mortifying and melancholy contrast with what we are at present. They act, in a manner, as milestones of existence, showing us how far we have travelled in the journey of life;-how much of our weary but fascinating pilgrimage is accomplished. I look round me, and my eye fondly recognizes the fields I once sported over, the river in which I once swam, and the orchard I intrepidly robbed in the halcyon days of boyhood. The fields are still green, the river still rolls unaltered and undiminished, and the orchard is still flourishing and fruitful;—it is I only am changed. The thoughtless flow of mad-cap spirits that nothing could depress;-the elasticity of nerve that enabled me to bound over the field, to stem the stream, and climb the tree;—the 'sunshine of the breast' that beamed an illusive charm over every object, and created a paradise around me!-where are they?-the thievish lapse of years has stolen them away, and left in return nothing but gray hairs, and a repining spirit." My friend Launcelot concluded his harangue with a sigh, and as I saw he was still under the influence of a whole legion of the blues, and just on the point of sinking into one of his whimsical and unreasonable fits of melancholy abstraction, I proposed a walk;--he consented, and slipping his left arm in mine, and waving in the other a gold-headed thorn cane, bequeathed him by his uncle John, we slowly rambled along the margin of the river.

THE brisk north-westers, which prevailed not long since, had a powerful effect in arresting the progress of belles, beaux, and wild pigeons in their fashionable northern tour, and turning them back to the more balmy region of the South. Among the rest, I was encountered, full butt, by a blast which set my teeth chattering, just as I doubled one of the frown-our acquaintance with well-known but long-sepaing bluffs of the Mohawk mountains, in my route to Niagara; and facing about incontinently, I forthwith scud before the wind, and a few days since arrived at my old quarters in New-York. My first care, on returning from so long an absence, was to visit the worthy family of the Cocklofts, whom I found safe, burrowed in their country mansion. On inquiring for my highly respected coadjutor, Langstaff, learned with great concern that he had relapsed into one of his eccentric fits of the spleen, ever since the era of a turtle dinner given by old Cockloft to some of the neighbouring squires; wherein the old gentleman had achieved a glorious victory, in laying honest Launcelot fairly under the table. Langstaff, although fond of the social board, and cheerful glass, yet abominates any excess; and has an invincible aversion to getting mellow, considering it a wilful outrage on the sanctity of imperial mind, a senseless abuse of the body, and an unpardonable, because a voluntary, prostration of both mental and personal dignity. I have heard him moralize on the subject, in a style that would have done honour to Michael Cassia himself: but I believe, if the truth were known, this antipathy rather arises from his having, as the phrase is, but a weak head, and nerves so extremely sensitive, that he is sure to suffer severely from a frolic; and will groan and make resolutions against it for a week afterwards. He therefore took this waggish exploit of old Christopher's, and the consequent quizzing which he underwent, in high dudgeon; had kept aloof from company for a fortnight, and appeared to be meditating some deep plan of retaliation upon his mischievous old crony. He had, however, for the last day or two, shown some symptoms of convalescence: had listened, without more than half a dozen twitches of impatience, to one of Christopher's unconscionable long stories; and even was seen to smile, for the one hundred and thirtieth time, at a venerable joke originally borrowed from Joe Miller: but which, by dint of long occupancy, and frequent repetition, the old gentleman now firmly believes happened to himself somewhere in New-England.

Langstaff, though possessing great vivacity of temper, is most wofully subject to these "thick coming fancies:" and I do not know a man whose animal spirits do insult him with more jiltings, and coquetries, and slippery tricks. In these moods he is often visited by a whim-wham which he indulges in common with the Cocklofts. It is that of looking back with regret, conjuring up the phantoms of good old times, and decking them out in imaginary finery, with the spoils of his fancy; like a good lady widow, regretting the loss of the "poor dear man;" for whom, while living, she cared not a rush. I have seen him and Pindar, and old Cockloft, amuse themselves over a bottle with their youthful days; until by the time they had become what is termed merry, they were the most miserable beings in existence In a similar humour was Launcelot at present, and I knew the only way was to let him moralize himself out of it.

As I am well acquainted with Launcelot's haunts, I soon found him out. He was lolling on his favourite bench, rudely constructed at the foot of an old tree, which is full of fantastical twists, and with its spreading branches forms a canopy of luxuriant foliage. This tree is a kind of chronicle of the short reigns of his uncle John's mistresses; and its trunk is sorely wounded with carvings of true lovers' knots, hearts, darts, names, and inscriptions !-frail memorials of the variety of the fair dames who captivated the wandering fancy of that old cavalier in the days of his youthful romance. Launcelot holds this tree in particular regard, as he does every thing else connected with the memory of his good uncle John. He was reclining, in one of his usual brown studies, Our ramble was soon interrupted by the appearagainst its trunk, and gazing pensively upon the river ance of a personage of no little importance at Cockthat glided just by, washing the drooping branches loft-hall-for, to let my readers into a family secret, of the dwarf willows that fringed its bank. My ap-friend Christopher is notoriously hen-pecked by an old

negro, who has whitened on the place; and is his master, almanac, and counsellor. My readers, if haply they have sojourned in the country, and become conversant in rural manners, must have observed, that there is scarce a little hamlet but has one of these old weather-beaten wiseacres of negroes, who ranks among the great characters of the place. He is always resorted to as an oracle to resolve any question about the weather, fishing, shooting, farming, and horse-doctoring: and on such occasions will slouch his remnant of a hat on one side, fold his arms, roll his white eyes, and examine the sky, with a look as knowing as Peter Pindar's magpie when peeping into a marrow-bone. Such a sage curmudgeon is Old Cæsar, who acts as friend Cockloft's prime minister or grand vizier; assumes, when abroad, his master's style and title; to wit, squire Cockloft; and is, in effect, absolute lord and ruler of the soil.

us their pedigrees, together with a panegyric on the swiftness, bottom, blood, and spirit of their sires. From these he digressed into a variety of anecdotes, in which Launcelot bore a conspicuous part, and on which the old negro dwelt with all the garrulity of age. Honest Langstaff stood leaning with his arm over the back of his favourite steed, old Killdeer; and I could perceive he listened to Cæsar's simple details with that fond attention with which a feeling mind will hang over narratives of boyish days. His eyes sparkled with animation, a glow of youthful fire stole across his pale visage; he nodded with smiling approbation at every sentence;-chuckled at every exploit; laughed heartily at the story of his once having smoked out a country singing-school with brimstone and assafoetida ;-and slipping a piece of money into old Cæsar's hand to buy himself a new tobacco-box, he seized me by the arm and hurried out of the stable brimfull of good-nature. ""Tis a pestilent old rogue for talking, my dear fellow," cried he, "but you must not find fault with him,-the creature means well." I knew at the very moment that he made this apology, honest Cæsar could not have given him half the satisfaction had he talked like a Cicero or a Solomon.

Launcelot returned to the house with me in the best possible humour:-the whole family, who, in truth, love and honour him from their very souls, were delighted to see the sunbeams once more play in his countenance. Every one seemed to vie who should talk the most, tell the longest stories, and be most agreeable; and Will Wizard, who had accompanied me in my visit, declared, as he lighted his segar, which had gone out forty times in the course of one of his oriental tales,-that he had not passed so pleasant an evening since the birth-night ball of the beauteous empress of Hayti.

As he passed us he pulled off his hat with an air of something more than respect;-it partook, I thought, of affection. "There, now, is another memento of the kind I have been noticing," said Launcelot ; “Cæsar was a bosom friend and chosen playmate of cousin Pindar and myself, when we were boys. Never were we so happy as when, stealing away on a holiday to the hall, we ranged about the fields with honest Cæsar. He was particularly adroit in making our quail-traps and fishing-rods; was always the ring-leader in all the schemes of frolicksome mischief perpetrated by the urchins of the neighbourhood; considered himself on an equality with the best of us; and many a hard battle have I had with him, about a division of the spoils of an orchard, or the title to a bird's nest. Many a summer evening do I remember when huddled together on the steps of the hall door, Cæsar, with his stories of ghosts, goblins, and witches, would put us all in a panic, and people every lane, and churchyard, and solitary wood, with imaginary beings. In process of time, he became the constant attendant and Man Friday of cousin Pindar, whenever he went a sparking among the rosy country girls of the neighbouring farms; and brought up his rear at every rustic dance, when he would mingle in the sable group that always thronged the door of merri-istence. ment; and it was enough to put to the rout a host of splenetic imps to see his mouth gradually dilate from ear to ear, with pride and exultation, at seeing how neatly master Pindar footed it over the floor. Cæsar was likewise the chosen confidant and special agent of Pindar in all his love affairs, until, as his evil stars would have it, on being entrusted with the delivery of a poetic billetdoux to one of his patron's sweethearts, he took an unlucky notion to send it to his own sable dulcinea; who, not being able to read it, took it to her mistress ;-and so the whole affair was blown. Pindar was universally roasted, and Cæsar discharged for ever from his confidence.

"Poor Cæsar!—he has now grown old, like his young masters, but he still remembers old times; and will, now and then, remind me of them as he lights me to my room, and lingers a little while to bid me a good-night-believe me, my dear Evergreen, the honest, simple old creature has a warm corner in my heart;-I don't see, for my part, why a body may not like a negro as well as a white man!" By the time these biographical anecdotes were ended we had reached the stable, into which we involuntarily strolled, and found Cæsar busily employed in rubbing down the horses; an office he would not entrust to any body else; having contracted an affection for every beast in the stable, from their being descendants of the old race of animals, his youthful contemporaries. Cæsar was very particular in giving VOL. II.-18.

[The following essay was written by my friend Langstaff, in one of the paroxysms of his splenetic complaint; and, for aught I know, may have been effectual in restoring him to good humour.-A mental discharge of the kind has a remarkable tendency toward sweetening the temper,-and Launcelot is, at this moment, one of the best-natured men in exA. EVERGREEN.]

ON GREATNESS.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

WE have more than once, in the course of our work, been most jocosely familiar with great personages; and, in truth, treated them with as little ceremony, respect, and consideration, as if they had been our most particular friends. Now, we would not suffer the mortification of having our readers even suspect us of an intimacy of the kind; assuring them we are extremely choice in our intimates, and uncommonly circumspect in avoiding connexions with all doubtful characters; particularly pimps, bailiffs, lottery-brokers, chevaliers of industry and great men. The world, in general, is pretty well aware of what is to be understood by the former classes of delinquents; but as the latter has never, I believe, been specifically defined; and as we are determined to instruct our readers to the extent of our abilities, and their limited comprehension, it may not be amiss here to let them know what we understand by a great man.

First, therefore, let us-editors and kings are always plural-premise, that there are two kinds of

greatness, one conferred by heaven-the exalted | trious animal in Virginia, which burics itself in filth, nobility of the soul;-the other, a spurious distinc-and works ignobly in the dirt, until it forms a little tion, engendered by the mob and lavished upon its ball, which it rolls laboriously along, like Diogenes favourites. The former of these distinctions we have in his tub; sometimes head, sometimes tail foremost, always contemplated with reverence; the latter, we pilfering from every rut and mud-hole, and increasing will take this opportunity to strip naked before our its ball of greatness by the contributions of the kenunenlightened readers; so that if by chance any of nel. Just so the candidate for greatness;-he plunges them are held in ignominious thraldom by this base into that mass of obscenity, the mob; labours in dirt circulation of false coin, they may forthwith emanci- and oblivion, and makes unto himself the rudiments pate themselves from such inglorious delusion. of a popular name from the admiration and praises It is a fictitious value given to individuals by pub- of rogues, ignoramuses, and blackguards. His name lic caprice, as bankers give an impression to a worth- once started, onward he goes struggling, and puffing, less slip of paper; thereby gaining it a currency for and pushing it before him; collecting new tributes infinitely more than its intrinsic value. Every nation from the dregs and offals of the land, as he proceeds, has its peculiar coin, and peculiar great men; neither until having gathered together a mighty mass of of which will, for the most part, pass current out of popularity, he mounts it in triumph; is hoisted into the country where they are stamped. Your true office, and becomes a great man, and a ruler in the mob-created great man, is like a note of one of the land;-all this will be clearly illustrated by a sketch little New-England banks, and his value depreciates of a worthy of the kind, who sprung up under my in proportion to the distance from home. In En-eye, and was hatched from pollution by the broad gland, a great man is he who has most ribands and rays of popularity, which, like the sun, can "breed gew-gaws on his coat, most horses to his carriage, maggots in a dead dog." most slaves in his retinue, or most toad-eaters at his table; in France, he who can most dexterously flourish his heels above his head-Duport is most incontestably the greatest man in France!-when the emperor is absent. The greatest man in China is he who can trace his ancestry up to the moon; and in this country, our great men may generally hunt down their pedigree until it burrows in the dirt like a rabbit. To be concise; our great men are those who are most expert at crawling on all fours, and have the happiest facility in dragging and wind-marked him out for a great man; for though he was ing themselves along in the dirt like very reptiles. This may seem a paradox to many of my readers, who, with great good-nature be it hinted, are too stupid to look beyond the mere surface of our invaluable writings; and often pass over the knowing allusion, and poignant meaning, that is slily couching beneath. It is for the benefit of such helpless ignorants, who have no other creed but the opinion of the mob, that I shall trace-as far as it is possible to follow him in his progress from insignificance-the rise, progress, and completion of a LITTLE GREAT

MAN.

In a logocracy, to use the sage Mustapha's phrase, it is not absolutely necessary to the formation of a great man that he should be either wise or valiant, upright or honourable. On the contrary, daily experience shows that these qualities rather impede his preferment; inasmuch as they are prone to render him too inflexibly erect, and are directly at variance with that willowy suppleness which enables a man to wind and twist through all the nooks and turns and dark winding passages that lead to greatness. The grand requisite for climbing the rugged hill of popularity,—the summit of which is the seat of power,-is to be useful. And here once more, for the sake of our readers, who are, of course, not so wise as ourselves, I must explain what we understand by usefulness. The horse, in his native state, is wild, swift, impetuous, full of majesty, and of a most generous spirit. It is then the animal is noble, exalted, and useless.-But entrap him, manacle him, cudgel him, break down his lofty spirit, put the curb into his mouth, the load upon his back, and reduce him into servile obedience to the bridle and the lash, and it is then he becomes useful. Your jackass is one of the most useful animals in existence. If my readers do not now understand what I mean by usefulness, I give them all up for most absolute nincoms. To rise in this country, a man must first descend. The aspiring politician may be compared to that indefatigable insect called the tumbler; pronounced by a distinguished personage to be the only indus

TIMOTHY DABBLE was a young man of very promising talents: for he wrote a fair hand, and had thrice won the silver medal at a country academy; he was also an orator, for he talked with emphatic volubility, and could argue a full hour, without taking either side, or advancing a single opinion;—he had still further requisites for eloquence; for he made very handsome gestures, had dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, and enunciated most harmoniously through his nose. In short, nature had certainly not tall, yet he added at least half an inch to his stature by elevating his head, and assumed an amazing expression of dignity by turning up his nose and curling his nostrils in a style of conscious superiority. Convinced by these unequivocal appearances, Dabble's friends, in full caucus, one and all, declared that he was undoubtedly born to be a great man, and it would be his own fault if he were not one. Dabble was tickled with an opinion which coincided so happily with his own,-for vanity, in a confidential whisper, had given him the like intimation;—and he reverenced the judgment of his friends because they thought so highly of himself;-accordingly he sat out with a determination to become a great man, and to start in the scrub-race for honour and renown. How to attain the desired prizes was, however, the question. He knew by a kind of instinctive feeling, which seems peculiar to grovelling minds, that honour, and its better part-profit, would never seek him out; that they would never knock at his door and crave admittance; but must be courted, and toiled after, and earned. He therefore strutted forth into the highways, the market-places, and the assemblies of the people; ranted like a true cockerel orator about virtue, and patriotism, and liberty, and equality, and himself. Full many a political wind-mill did he battle with; and full many a time did he talk himself out of breath, and his hearers out of their patience.

But Dabble found, to his vast astonishment, that there was not a notorious political pimp at a ward meeting but could out-talk him; and what was still more mortifying, there was not a notorious political pimp but was more noticed and caressed than himself. The reason was simple enough; while he harangued about principles, the others ranted about men; where he reprobated a political error, they blasted a political character;-they were, conscquently, the most useful; for the great object of our political disputes is not who shall have the honour of emancipating the community from the leading strings of delusion, but who shall have the profit of holding the strings and leading the community by the nose.

Dabble was likewise very loud in his professions Dabble was now very frequent and devout in his of integrity, incorruptibility, and disinterestedness; visits to those temples of politics, popularity, and words which, from being filtered and refined through smoke, the ward porter-houses; those true dens of newspapers and election handbills, have lost their equality where all ranks, ages, and talents are original signification; and in the political dictionary brought down to the dead level of rude familiarity. are synonymous with empty pockets, itching palms, 'Twas here his talents expanded, and his genius and interested ambition. He, in addition to all this, swelled up into its proper size; like the loathsonie declared that he would support none but honest toad, which, shrinking from balmy airs and jocund men ;—but unluckily as but few of these offered sunshine, finds his congenial home in caves and dunthemselves to be supported, Dabble's services were geons, and there nourishes his venom, and bloats seldom required. He pledged himself never to en- his deformity. 'Twas here he revelled with the gage in party schemes, or party politics, but to stand swinish multitude in their debauches on patriotism up solely for the broad interests of his country;—so and porter; and it became an even chance whether he stood alone; and what is the same thing, he Dabble would turn out a great man or a great stood still; for, in this country, he who does not drunkard. But Dabble in all this kept steadily in side with either party, is like a body in a vacuum his eye the only deity he ever worshipped-his between two planets, and must for ever remain mo- interest. Having by this familiarity ingratiated tionless. himself with the mob, he became wonderfully potent and industrious at elections; knew all the dens and cellars of profligacy and intemperance; brought more negroes to the polls, and knew to a greater certainty where votes could be bought for beer, than any of his contemporaries. His exertions in the cause, his persevering industry, his degrading compliance, his unresisting humility, his steadfast dependence, at length caught the attention of one of the leaders of the party; who was pleased to observe that Dabble was a very useful fellow, who would go all lengths. From that moment his fortune was made; he was hand and glove with orators and slang-whangers; basked in the sunshine of great men's smiles, and had the honour, sundry times, of shaking hands with dignitaries, and drinking out of the same pot with them at a porter-house!!

Dabble was immeasurably surprised that a man so honest, so disinterested, and so sagacious withal, -and one too who had the good of his country so much at heart, should thus remain unnoticed and unapplauded. A little worldly advice, whispered in his ear by a shrewd old politician, at once explained the whole mystery. "He who would become great," said he," must serve an apprenticeship to greatness; and rise by regular gradation, like the master of a vessel, who commences by being scrub and cabinboy. He must fag in the train of great men, echo all their sentiments, become their toad-eater and parasite; laugh at all their jokes, and above all, endeavour to make them laugh; if you only now and then make a man laugh, your fortune is made. Look but about you, youngster, and you will not see a single little great man of the day, but has his miserable herd of retainers, who yelp at his heels, come at his whistle, worry whoever he points his finger at, and think themselves fully rewarded by sometimes snapping up a crumb that falls from the great man's table. Talk of patriotism and virtue, and incorruptibility!-tut, man! they are the very qualities that scare munificence, and keep patronage at a distance. You might as well attempt to entice crows with red rags and gunpowder. Lay all these scarecrow virtues aside, and let this be your maxim, that a candidate for political eminence is like a dried herring; he never becomes luminous until he is corrupt.

I will not fatigue myself with tracing this caterpillar in his slimy progress from worm to butterfly: suffice it that Dabble bowed and bowed, and fawned, and sneaked, and smirked, and libelled, until one would have thought perseverance itself would have settled down into despair. There was no knowing how long he might have lingered at a distance from his hopes, had he not luckily got tarred and feathered for some of his electioneering manoeuvres;-this was the making of him!-Let not my readers stare;-tarring and feathering here is equal to pillory and cropped ears in England; and either of these kinds of martyrdom will ensure Dabble caught with hungry avidity these congenial a patriot the sympathy and support of his faction. doctrines, and turned into his pre-destined channel His partizans, for even he had his partizans, took of action with the force and rapidity of a stream his case into consideration ;-he had been kicked which has for a while been restrained from its natu- and cuffed, and disgraced, and dishonoured in the ral course. He became what nature had fitted him cause ;-he had licked the dust at the feet of the to be;-his tone softened down from arrogant self-mob;-he was a faithful drudge, slow to anger, of sufficiency, to the whine of fawning solicitation. invincible patience, of incessant assiduity;-a thorHe mingled in the caucuses of the sovereign people; adapted his dress to a similitude of dirty raggedness; argued most logically with those who were of his own opinion; and slandered, with all the malice of impotence, exalted characters whose orbit he despaired ever to approach:-just as that scoundrel midnight thief, the owl, hoots at the blessed light of the sun, whose glorious lustre he dares never contemplate. He likewise applied himself to discharging, faithfully, the honourable duties of a partizan; -he poached about for private slanders and ribald anecdotes;-he folded handbills; he even wrote one or two himself, which he carried about in his pocket and read to every body; he became a secretary at ward-meetings, set his hand to divers resolutions of patriotic import, and even once went so far as to make a speech, in which he proved that patriotism was a virtue;-the reigning bashaw a great man ;--that this was a free country, and he himself an arrant and incontestible buzzard!

ough-going tool, who could be curbed, and spurred, and directed at pleasure ;-in short, he had all the important qualifications for a little great man, and he was accordingly ushered into office amid the acclamations of the party. The leading men complimented his usefulness, the multitude his republican simplicity, and the slang whangers vouched for his patriotism. Since his elevation he has discovered indubitable signs of having been destined for a great man. His nose has acquired an additional elevation of several degrees, so that now he appears to have bidden adieu to this world and to have set his thoughts altogether on things above; and he has swelled and inflated himself to such a degree, that his friends are under apprehensions that he will one day or other explode and blow up like a torpedo.