rest a very loving epistle from George-town, Colum-pecting to hear from "the most enlightened people bia, signed Teddy M'Gundy, who addresses us by under the sun," for so they modestly term them the name of Saul M'Gundy, and insists that we are selves, sublime disputations on the science of legisla descended from the same Irish progenitors, and tion and precepts of political wisdom that would not nearly related. As friend Teddy seems to be an have disgraced our great prophet and legislator himhonest, merry rogue, we are sorry that we cannot self!-but, alas, Asem! how continually are my exadmit his claims to kindred; we thank him, how-pectations disappointed! how dignified a meaning ever, for his good-will, and should he ever be inclined to favour 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." 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, No. XIV-SATURDAY, SEPT. 19, 1807. will quarrel, with the most vociferous pertinacity, or the economy of a dirt-cart. A couple of politicians LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, 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 a few days since that I was 10 ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO annoyed by a debate between two of my fellow HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI. 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 HEALTH and joy to the friend of my heart!-May opinions some thirty years ago. Shocked at their il the angel of peace ever watch over thy dwelling, and liberal and vindictive spirit, I rebuked them for thus the star of prosperity shed its benignant lustre on all indulging in slander and uncharitableness, about the thy undertakings. Far other is the lot of thy captive colour of a coat; which had doubtless for many years friend; his brightest hopes extend but to a length-been worn out; or the belief in errors, which, in all ened 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 is but a vision of the night. The sigh will rise,-the tear of dejection will steal down my cheek:-I fly to my pen, and strive to forget myself, and my sorrows, in conversing with my friend. probability, had been long since atoned for and abandoned; but they justified themselves by alleg ing 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. 'Oh, Mahomet!" thought I, "what a country must that be, which builds its political safety on ruined characters and the persecution of individuals!" 64 Into what transports of surprise and incredulity am I continually betrayed, as the character of this eccentric people gradually developes 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. 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 cccentricities. How fertile in these contradictions is this extensive I have before observed, that among the distinguish-logocracy! Men of different nations, manners, and ing characteristics of the people of this logocracy, is languages live in this country in the most perfect their invincible love of talking; and, that I could harmony; and nothing is more common than to see compare the nation to nothing but a mighty wind-individuals, whose respective governments are at vamill. 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. riance, taking each other by the hand and exchang ing the offices of friendship. Nay, even on the subject of religion, which, as it affects our dearest inter ests, our earliest opinions and prejudices, some The genius of the nation appears in its highest warmth and heart-burnings might be excused, which, lustre in this particular in the discovery, or rather even in our enlightened country, is so fruitful in difthe application, of a subject which seems to supply ference between man and man!—even religion occaan inexhaustible mine of words. It is nothing more, sions no dissension among these people; and it has my friend, than POLITICS; a word which, I declare even been discovered by one of their sages that beto thee, has perplexed me almost as much as the re- lieving in one God or twenty Gods "neither breaks doubtable one of economy. On consulting a diction- a man's leg nor picks his pocket." The idolatrous ary of this language, I found it denoted the science Persian may here bow down before his everlasting of government; and the relations, situations, and fire, and prostrate himself towards the glowing east. dispositions of states and empires.-Good, thought I, The Chinese may adore his Fo, or his Josh; the for a people who boast of governing themselves Egyptian his stork; and the Mussulman practise, there could not be a more important subject of in- unmolested, the divine precepts of our immortal vestigation. I therefore listened attentively, ex-prophet. Nay, even the forlorn, abandoned Atheist. who lays 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. 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 every body 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 every thing 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 slangwhangers, which in all probability are diametrically opposite :-here, then, arises as fair an opportunity At this period several unjustifiable and serious in- for a battle of words as heart could wish; and thou juries on the part of the barbarians of the British mayest rely upon it, Asem, they do not let it pass island, have given a new impulse to the tongue and unimproved. They sometimes begin with argument; the pen, and occasioned a terrible wordy fever.-Do but in process of time, as the tongue begins to wax not suppose, my friend, that I mean to condemn any wanton, other auxiliaries become necessary; recrimproper and dignified expression of resentment for ination commences; reproach follows close at its injuries. On the contrary, I love to see a word be- heels ;--from political abuse they proceed to perfore a blow: for "in the fulness of the heart the sonal; and thus often is a friendship of years tramtongue moveth." But my long experience has con- pled down by this contemptible enemy, this gigantic vinced me that people who talk the most about tak-dwarf of POLITICS, the mongrel issue of grovelling ing satisfaction for affronts, generally content them- ambition and aspiring ignorance! 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 na tion. 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, growls 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. selves with talking instead of revenging the insult: There would be but little harm indeed in all this, like the street women of this country, who, after a if it ended merely in a broken head; for this might prodigious scolding, quietly sit down and fan them-soon be healed, and the scar, if any remained, might selves cool as fast as possible. But to return-the rage for talking has now, in consequence of the aggressions 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 But thou wilt perhaps ask, "What can these peoin the language are exhausted by way of giving fire ple dispute about? one would suppose that being all and energy to argument. What renders this talking free and equal, they would harmonize as brothers; fever more alarming, is that the people appear to be children of the same parent, and equal heirs of the in the unhappy state of a patient whose palate nau- same inheritance." This theory is most exquisite, seates the medicine best calculated for the cure of my good friend, but in practice it turns out the very his disease, and seem anxious to continue in the full dream of a madman. Equality, Asem, is one of the enjoyment of their chattering epidemic. They alarm most consummate scoundrels that ever crept from each other by direful reports and fearful apprehen- the brain of a political juggler -a fellow who sions; like I have seen a knot of old wives in this thrusts his hand into the pocket of honest industry, country entertain themselves with stories of ghosts or enterprising talent, and squanders their hardand goblins until their imaginations were in a most earned profits on profligate idleness or indolent stu agonizing panic. Every day begets some new tale, pidity. There will always be an inequality among big with agitation; and the busy goddess, rumour, mankind so long as a portion of it is enlightened and to speak in the poetic language of the Christians, is industrious, and the rest idle and ignorant. The one constantly in motion. She mounts her rattling stage- will acquire a larger share of wealth, and its attendwagon and gallops about the country, freighted with ant comforts, refinements, and luxuries of life; and a load of "hints," "informations," "extracts of letters the influence, and power, which those will always from respectable gentlemen," observations of re- possess who have the greatest ability of administer spectable correspondents," and "unquestionable au- ing to the necessities of their fellow-creatures. thorities;"-which her high-priests, the slang whang- These advantages will inevitably excite envy; and ers, retail to their sapient followers with all the so- envy as inevitably begets ill-will-hence arises that lemnity-and all the authenticity of oracles. True eternal warfare, which the lower orders of society it is, the unfortunate slang-whangers are sometimes are waging against those who have raised themselves at a loss for food to supply this insatiable appetite by their own merits, or have been raised by the merfor intelligence; and are, not unfrequently, reduced its of their ancestors, above the common level. In to the necessity of manufacturing dishes suited to a nation possessed of quick feelings and in.petuous passions, the hostility might engender deadly broils and bloody commotions; but here it merely vents itself in Ligh-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. COCKLOFT HALL. BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. THOSE who pass their time immured in the sinoky circumference of the city, amid the rattling of carts, the brawling of the multitude, and the variety of unmeaning and 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 expe 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. 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 ex-riences when he steals forth from his dusty prison to change of bashaws;-they really seem ignorant that none but the bashaws and their dependants 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 every thing 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 gentle- | men bashaws, riding in their coaches, and faring 'sumptuously every day; emancipated from toil, and revelling in luxurious ease. Wilt thou credit me, Asem, when I declare to thee that every thing 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 labourer 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 A whole legion of reflections like these insinuated afterwards, notwithstanding the sterling merits he themselves into my mind, and stole me from the inreally possesses, in compliance with immemorial cus-fluence of the cold realities before me, as I took my tom, 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; anc. 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. MUSTAPHA. Ever thine, At such time I feel a sensation of sweet tranquillity; 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, selfinterest, 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! accustomed walk, a few weeks since, on the battery. 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 his own:" now, whether my grandfather ever heard present residence. I do this as much to gratify of the Medici, is more than I can say; I rather them as myself: well knowing a reader is always think, however, from the characteristic originality of 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 vagabond! it is often the only gratification he eves tastes in this world! the Cocklofts, that it was a whim-wham of his own begetting. Another odd notion of the old gentleman was to blow up a large bed of rocks, for the purpose of having a fish-pond, although the river ran at about one hundred yards distance from the house, and was well stored with fish ;-but there was COCKLOFT-HALL is the country residence of the nothing, he said, like having things to one's-self. family, or rather the paternal mansion; which, like So at it he went with all the ardour of a projector the mother country, sends forth whole colonies to who has just hit upon some splendid and useless populate the face of the earth. Pindar whimsically whim-wham. As he proceeded, his views enlarged; denominates it the family hive! and there is at least he would have a summer-house built on the margin as much truth as humour in my cousin's epithet;- of the fish-pond; he would have it surrounded with for many a redundant swarm has it produced. I elms and willows; and he would have a cellar dug don't recollect whether I have at any time mention-under it, for some incomprehensible purpose, which ed 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 favourite phrase of old Cockloft, who is excessively addicted to back- | gammon, they seldom fail "to throw doublets every time." I myself have known three or four very industrious young men reduced to great extremities, with 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. remains a secret to this day. In a few years,” he observed, "it would be a delightful piece of wood and water, where he might ramble on a summer's noon, smoke his pipe, and enjoy himself in his old days: "-thrice honest old soul!—he died of an ap oplexy in his ninetieth year, just as he had begun to blow up the fish-pond. Let no one ridicule the whim-whams of my grandfather.If-and of this there is no doubt, for wise men have said it--if life is but a dream, happy is he who can make the most of the illusion. Since my grandfather's death, the hall has passed through the hands of a succession of true old cavaliers, like himself, who gloried in observing the golden rules of hospitality; which, according to the Cockloft principle, consist in giving a guest the freedom of the house, cramming him with beef and pudding, and, if possible, laying him under the table with prime port, claret, or London particular. The mansion appears to have been consecrated to the jolly god, and teems with monuments sacred to conviviality. Every chest of drawers, clothes-press,. and cabinet, is decorated with enormous China punch-bowls, which Mrs. Cockloft has paraded with much ostentation, particularly in her favourite red damask bed-chamber, and in which a projector might, with great satisfaction, practise his experiments on fleets, diving-bells, and sub-marine boats. But to return to the hall.-It is pleasantly situated on the bank of a sweet pastoral stream: not so near town as to invite an inundation of unmeaning, idle acquaintance, who come to lounge away an afternoon, nor so distant as to render it an absolute deed of charity or friendship to perform the journey. It is one of the oldest habitations in the country, and was built by my cousin Christopher's grandfather, who was also mine by the mother's side, in his latter days, to form, as the old gentleman expressed himself, "a snug retreat, where he meant to sit himself down in his old days and be comfortable for the rest of his life." He was at this time a few years over four score: but this was a common saying of his, with which he usually closed his airy speculations. One would have thought, from the long vista of years through which he contemplated many of his I have before mentioned cousin Christopher's proprojects, that the good man had forgot the age of found veneration for antique furniture; in conse the patriarchs had long since gone by, and calculated quence of which the old hall is furnished in much upon living a century longer at least. He was for a the same style with the house in town. Old-fashionconsiderable time in doubt on the question of roof-ed bedsteads, with high testers; massy clothesing his house with shingles or slate:-shingles would not last above thirty years! but then they were much cheaper than slates. He settled the matter by a kind of compromise, and determined to build with shingles first; "and when they are worn out," said the old gentleman, triumphantly, "'twill be time enough to replace them with more durable materials!" But his contemplated improvements surpassed every thing; and scarcely had he a roof over If I may judge from their height, it was not the his head, when he discovered a thousand things to fashion for gentlemen in those days to loll over the be arranged before he could" sit down comfortably." back of a lady's chair, and whisper in her ear what In the first place, every tree and bush on the place-might be as well spoken aloud;-at least, they was cut down or grubbed up by the roots, because must have been Patagonians to have effected it. they were not placed to his mind; and a vast quantity of oaks, chestnuts, and elms, set out in clumps and rows, and labyrinths, which he observed in about five-and-twenty or thirty years at most, would yield a very tolerable shade, and, moreover, shut out all the surrounding country; for he was determined, he said, to have all his views on his own land, and be beholden to no man for a prospect. This, my learned readers will perceive, was something very like the idea of Lorenzo de Medici, who gave as a reason for preferring one of his seats above all the others, "that all the ground within view of it was presses, standing most majestically on eagles' claws, and ornamented with a profusion of shining brass handles, clasps, and hinges; and around the grand parlour are solemnly arranged a set of high-backed, leather-bottomed, massy, mahogany chairs, that always remind me of the formal long-waisted belles, who flourished in stays and buckram, about the time they were in fashion. Will Wizard declares that he saw a little fat German gallant attempt once to whisper Miss Barbara Cockloft in this manner, but being unluckily caught by the chin, he dangled and kicked about for half a minute, before he could find terra firma ;-but Will is much addicted to hyperbole, by reason of his having been a great traveller. But what the Cocklofts most especially pride themselves upon, is the possession of several family portraits, which exhibit as honest a square set of portly, well-fed looking gentlemen, and gentlewomen, as ever grew and flourished under the pencil of a Dutch painter. Old Christopher, who is a complete geneal- Another object of his peculiar affection is an old ogist, has a story to tell of each; and dilates with English cherry tree, which leans against a corner of copious eloquence on the great services of the gen- the hall; and whether the house supports it, or it eral in large sleeves, during the old French war; supports the house, would be, I believe, a question and on the piety of the lady in blue velvet, who so of some difficulty to decide. It is held sacred by attentively peruses her book, and was once so cele- friend Christopher because he planted and reared it brated for a beautiful arm: but much as I reverence himself, and had once well-nigh broke his neck by a my illustrious ancestors, I find little to admire in fall from one of its branches. This is one of his their biography, except my cousin's excellent mem- favourite stories--and there is reason to believe, ory; which is most provokingly retentive of every that if the tree was out of the way, the old gentleuninteresting particular. man would forget the whole affair;-which would be a great pity.--The old tree has long since ceased bearing, and is exceedingly infirm ;-every tempest robs it of a limb; and one would suppose from the that he had lost one of his own. He often contemplates it in a half-melancholy, half-moralizing humour-" together," he says, "have we flourished, and together shall we wither away:—a few years, and both our heads will be laid low; and, perhaps, my mouldering bones may, one day or other, mingle with the dust of the tree I have planted." He often fancies, he says, that it rejoices to see him when he revisits the hall; and that its leaves assume a brighter verdure, as if to welcome his arrival. How whimsically are our tenderest feelings assailed! At one time the old tree had obtruded a withered branch before Miss Barbara's window, and she desired her father to order the gardener to saw it off. I shall never forget the old man's answer, and the look that accompanied it. "What," cried he, "lop off the limbs of my cherry tree in its old age?-why do you not cut off the gray locks of your poor old father?" My allotted chamber in the hall is the same that was occupied in days of yore by my honoured uncle John. The room exhibits many memorials which recall to my remembrance the solid excellence and | lamentations of my old friend, on such occasions, amiable eccentricities of that gallant old lad. Over the mantel-piece hangs the portrait of a young lady dressed in a flaring, long-waisted, blue-silk gown; be-flowered, and be-furbelowed, and be-cuffed, in a most abundant manner; she holds in one hand a book, which she very complaisantly neglects to turn and smile on the spectator; in the other a flower, which I hope, for the honour of dame nature, was the sole production of the painter's imagination; and a little behind her is something tied to a blue riband, but whether a little dog, a monkey, or a pigeon, must be left to the judgment of future commentators. This little damsel, tradition says, was my uncle John's third flame; and he would infallibly have run away with her, could he have persuaded her into the measure; but at that time ladies were not quite so easily run away with as Columbine; and my uncle, failing in the point, took a lucky thought; and with great gallantry run off with her picture, which he conveyed in triumph to Cockloft-hall, and hung up in his bedchamber as a monument of his enterprising spirit. The old gentleman prided himself mightily on this chivalric manoeuvre; always chuckled, and pulled up his stock when he contemplated the picture, and never related the exploit without winding up with "I might, indeed, have carried off the original, had I chose to dangle a little longer after her chariotwheels; for, to do the girl justice, I believe she had a liking for me; but I always scorned to coax, my boy, always, 'twas my way." My uncle John was of a happy temperament;-I would give half I am worth for his talent at self-consolation. Do my readers yawn at this long family detail? They are welcome to throw down our work, and never resume it again. I have no care for such ungratified spirits, and will not throw away a thought on one of them;--full often have I contributed to their amusement, and have I not a right, for once, to consult my own? Who is there that does not fondly turn, at times, to linger round those scenes which were once the haunt of his boyhood, ere his heart grew heavy and his head waxed gray;--and to dwell with fond affection on the friends who have twined themselves round his heart,-mingled in all his enjoyments, contributed to all his felicities? If there be any who cannot relish these enjoyments, let them despair;--for they have been so soiled in their intercourse with the world, as to be incapable of tasting some of the purest pleasures that survive the happy period of youth. The Miss Cocklofts have made several spirited attempts to introduce modern furniture into the hall; but with very indifferent success. Modern style has always been an object of great annoyance to honest Christopher; and is ever treated by him with sovereign contempt, as an upstart intruder. It is a com- To such as have not yet lost the rural feeling, I mon observation of his, that your old-fashioned sub-address this simple family picture; and in the honest stantial furniture bespeaks the respectability of one's sincerity of a warm heart, I invite them to turn aside ancestors, and indicates that the family has been from bustle, care, and toil, to tarry with me for a used to hold up its head for more than the present season, in the hospitable mansion of the Cocklofts. generation; whereas the fragile appendages of modern style seemed to be emblems of mushroom gentility; and, to his mind, predicted that the family dignity would moulder away and vanish with the finery thus put on of a sudden.-The same whimwham makes him averse to having his house surrounded with poplars; which he stigmatizes as mere upstarts; just fit to ornament the shingle palaces of modern gentry, and characteristic of the establishments they decorate. Indeed, so far does he carry his veneration for all the antique trumpery, that he can scarcely see the venerable dust brushed from its resting place on the old-fashioned testers; or a graybearded spider dislodged from his ancient inheritance without groaning; and I once saw him in a transport of passion on Jeremy's knocking down a mouldering martin-coop with his tennis-ball, which had been set up in the latter days of my grandfather. I WAS really apprehensive, on reading the following effusion of Will Wizard, that he still retained that pestilent hankering after puns of which we lately convicted him. He, however, declares, that he is critics and wits of the present age, whose manner fully authorized by the example of the most popular and matter he has closely, and he flatters himself successfully, copied in the subsequent essay. THEATRICAL INTELLIGENCE. BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ. THE uncommon healthiness of the season, occasioned, as several learned physicians assure me, by |