CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 6

MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN. LETTER FROM ALICE ADDERTONGUE. QUERIES TO BE ASKED THE JUNTO. LETTER FROM THE CASUIST.

TO A COQUETTE TO THE SAME

LIONEL GRANBY, Chapter X: by Theta

THE PRAIRIE: by C. C.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

ODDS AND ENDS: by Oliver Oldschool

ON THE DEATH OF CAMILLA: by L. A. Wilmer

SONNET: by E. A. P.

THE LAKE: by C. C.

THE HALL OF INCHOLESE: by J. N. McJilton

A LEAF FROM MY SCRAP BOOK

THE CORPUS JURIS

A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER No. III: by J. F. O. TO —— ——: by George Lunt

GERMAN LITERATURE: by George H. Calvert

LINES

ALLITERATION

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL, No. IV: by J. F. O.

AMERICAN SOCIAL ELEVATION: by H. J. G.

DYING MEDITATIONS of a New York Alderman: by E. M.

IRENE: by E. A. P.

VERBAL CRITICISMS

EDITORIAL LYNCH'S LAW

CRITICAL NOTICES SPAIN REVISITED: by Lieutenant Slidell SALLUST'S JUGURTHINE WAR, AND CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE: by Charles Anthon PARIS AND THE PARISIANS IN 1835: by Frances Trollope A LIFE OF WASHINGTON: by James K. Paulding DIDACTICS—SOCIAL, LITERARY, AND POLITICAL: by Robert Walsh SKETCHES OF SWITZERLAND: by an American THE MARTYR'S TRIUMPH; BURIED VALLEY; AND OTHER POEMS: by Grenville Mellen

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II. RICHMOND, MAY, 1836. NO. VI.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN.¹

¹ These pieces from the pen of Dr. Franklin have never appeared in any edition of his works, and are from the manuscript book which contains the Lecture and Essays published in the April number of the Messenger.

Mr. Gazetteer,—I was highly pleased with your last week's paper upon SCANDAL, as the uncommon doctrine therein preached is agreeable both to my principles and practice, and as it was published very seasonably to reprove the impertinence of a writer in the foregoing Thursday's Mercury, who, at the conclusion of one of his silly paragraphs, laments forsooth that the fair sex are so peculiarly guilty of this enormous crime: every blockhead, ancient and modern, that could handle a pen, has, I think, taken upon him to cant in the same senseless strain. If to scandalize be really a crime, what do these puppies mean? They describe it—they dress it up in the most odious, frightful and detestable colors—they represent it as the worst of crimes, and then roundly and charitably charge the whole race of womankind with it. Are not they then guilty of what they condemn, at the same time that they condemn it? If they accuse us of any other crime they must necessarily scandalize while they do it; but to scandalize us with being guilty of scandal, is in itself an egregious absurdity, and can proceed from nothing but the most consummate impudence in conjunction with the most profound stupidity.

This, supposing as they do, that to scandalize is a crime; which you have convinced all reasonable people is an opinion absolutely erroneous. Let us leave then, these select mock-moralists, while I entertain you with some account of my life and manners.

I am a young girl of about thirty-five, and live at present with my mother. I have no care upon my head of getting a living, and therefore find it my duty as well as inclination to exercise my talent at CENSURE for the good of my country folks. There was, I am told, a certain generous emperor, who, if a day had passed over his head in which he had conferred no benefit on any man, used to say to his friends, in Latin, Diem perdidi, that is, it seems, I have lost a day. I believe I should make use of the same expression, if it were possible for a day to pass in which I had not, or missed, an opportunity to scandalize somebody: but, thanks be praised, no such misfortune has befel me these dozen years.

Yet whatever good I may do, I cannot pretend that I at first entered into the practice of this virtue from a principle of public spirit; for I remember that when a child I had a violent inclination to be ever talking in my own praise, and being continually told that it was ill-manners and once severely whipped for it, the confined stream formed itself a new channel, and I began to speak for the future in the dispraise of others. This I found more agreeable to company and almost as much so to myself: for what great difference can there be between putting yourself up or putting your neighbor down? Scandal, like other virtues, is in part its own reward, as it gives us the satisfaction of making ourselves appear better than others, or others no better than ourselves.

My mother, good woman, and I, have heretofore differed upon this account. She argued that Scandal spoilt all good conversation, and I insisted that without it there would be no such thing. Our disputes once rose so high that we parted tea-tables, and I concluded to entertain my acquaintance in the kitchen. The first day of this separation we both drank tea at the same time, but she with her visitors in the parlor. She would not hear of the least objection to any one's character, but began a new sort of discourse in some such queer philosophical manner as this: I am mightily pleased sometimes, says she, when I observe and consider that the world is not so bad as people out of humor imagine it to be. There is something amiable, some good quality or other in every body. If we were only to speak of people that are least respected, there is such a one is very dutiful to her father, and methinks has a fine set of teeth; such a one is very respectful to her husband; such a one is very kind to her poor neighbors, and besides has a very handsome shape; such a one is always ready to serve a friend, and in my opinion there is not a woman in town that has a more agreeable air or gait. This fine kind of talk, which lasted near half an hour, she concluded by saying, I do not doubt but every one of you has made the like observations, and I should be glad to have the conversation continued upon this subject. Just at this juncture I peeped in at the door, and never in my life before saw such a set of simple vacant countenances. They looked somehow neither glad nor sorry, nor angry nor pleased, nor indifferent nor attentive; but (excuse the simile) like so many images of rye dough. I, in the kitchen, had already begun a ridiculous story of Mr. ——'s intrigue with his maid, and his wife's behavior on the discovery; at some of the passages we laughed heartily; and one of the gravest of mamma's company, without making any answer to her discourse got up to go and see what the girls were so merry about: she was followed by a second, and shortly by a third, till at last the old gentlewoman found herself quite alone, and being convinced that her project was impracticable came herself and finished her tea with us; ever since which Saul also has been among the prophets, and our disputes lie dormant.

By industry and application I have made myself the centre of all the scandal in the province; there is little stirring but I hear of it. I began the world with this maxim, that no trade can subsist without returns; and accordingly, whenever I received a good story, I endeavored to give two or a better in the room of it. My punctuality in this way of dealing gave such encouragement that it has procured me an incredible deal of business, which without diligence and good method it would be impossible for me to go through. For besides the stock of defamation thus naturally flowing in upon me, I practice an art by which I can pump scandal out of people that are the least inclined that way. Shall I discover my secret? Yes; to let it die with me would be inhuman. If I have never heard ill of some person I always impute it to defective intelligence; for there are none without their faults, no, not one. If she be a woman, I take the first opportunity to let all her acquaintance know I have heard that one of the handsomest or best men in town has said something in praise either of her beauty, her wit, her virtue, or her good management. If you know any thing of human nature, you perceive that this naturally introduces a conversation turning upon all her failings, past, present and to come. To the same purpose and with the same success I cause every man of reputation to be praised before his competitors in love, business, or esteem, on account of any particular qualification. Near the times of election, if I find it necessary, I commend every candidate before some of the opposite party, listening attentively to what is said of him in answer. But commendations in this latter case are not always necessary and should be used judiciously. Of late years I needed only observe what they said of one another freely; and having for the help of memory taken account of all informations and accusations received, whoever peruses my writings after my death, may happen to think that during a certain time the people of Pennsylvania chose into all their offices of honor and trust, the veriest knaves, fools and rascals, in the whole province. The time of election used to be a busy time with me, but this year, with concern I speak it, people are grown so good natured, so intent upon mutual feasting and friendly entertainment, that I see no prospect of much employment from that quarter.

I mentioned above that without good method I could not go through my business. In my father's life time I had some instruction in accounts, which I now apply with advantage to my own affairs. I keep a regular set of books and can tell at an hour's warning how it stands between me and the world. In my Daybook I enter every article of defamation as it is transacted; for scandals received in I give credit, and when I pay them out again I make the persons to whom they respectively relate, Debtor. In my Journal, I add to each story, by way of improvement, such probable circumstances as I think it will bear, and in my Ledger the whole is regularly posted.

I suppose the reader already condemns me in his heart for this particular of adding circumstances, but I justify this part of my practice thus. It is a principle with me that none ought to have a greater share of reputation than they really deserve; if they have, it is an imposition upon the public. I know it is every one's interest, and therefore believe they endeavor to conceal all their vices and follies; and I hold that those people are extraordinary foolish or careless, who suffer one-fourth of their failings to come to public knowledge. Taking then the common prudence and imprudence of mankind in a lump, I suppose none suffer above one-fifth to be discovered; therefore, when I hear of any person's misdoing, I think I keep within bounds, if in relating it I only make it three times worse than it is; and I reserve to myself the privilege of charging them with one fault in four, which for aught I know they may be entirely innocent of. You see there are but few so careful of doing justice as myself; what reason then have mankind to complain of Scandal? In a general way the worst that is said of us is only half what might be said, if all our faults were seen.

But alas! two great evils have lately befallen me at the same time; an extreme cold that I can scarce speak, and a most terrible toothache that I dare hardly open my mouth. For some days past I have received ten stories for one I have paid; and I am not able to balance my accounts without your assistance. I have long thought that if you would make your paper a vehicle of scandal, you would double the number of your subscribers. I send you herewith accounts of four knavish tricks, two * * *, five * * * * *, three drubbed wives, and four henpecked husbands, all within this fortnight; which you may, as articles of news, deliver to the public, and if my toothache continues shall send you more, being in the mean time your constant reader,

ALICE ADDERTONGUE.

I thank my correspondent, Mrs. Addertongue, for her good will, but desire to be excused inserting the articles of news she has sent me, such things being in reality no news at all.

QUERIES TO BE ASKED THE JUNTO.

Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time?

Does the importation of servants increase or advance the wealth of our country?

Would not an office of insurance for servants be of service, and what methods are proper for the erecting such an office?

Whence does it proceed that the proselytes to any sect or persuasion, generally appear more zealous than those that are bred up in it?

Answer. I suppose that people BRED in different persuasions are nearly zealous alike. Then he that changes his party is either sincere or not sincere: that is, he either does it for the sake of the opinions merely, or with a view of interest. If he is sincere and has no view of interest, and considers before he declares himself how much ill will he shall have from those he leaves, and that those he is about to go among will be apt to suspect his sincerity: if he is not really zealous, he will not declare; and therefore must be zealous if he does declare.

If he is not sincere, he is obliged at least to put on an appearance of great zeal, to convince the better his new friends that he is heartily in earnest, for his old ones he knows dislike him. And as few acts of zeal will be more taken notice of than such as are done against the party he has left, he is inclined to injure or malign them because he knows they contemn and despise him. Hence one Renegado is (as the Proverb says) worse than ten Turks.

SIR,—It is strange, that among men who are born for society and mutual solace, there should be any who take pleasure in speaking disagreeable things to their acquaintance. But such there are I assure you, and I should be glad if a little public chastisement might be any means of reforming them. These ill-natured people study a man's temper, or the circumstances of his life, merely to know what disgusts him, and what he does not care to hear mentioned; and this they take care to omit no opportunity of disturbing him with. They communicate their wonderful discoveries to others, with an ill-natured satisfaction in their countenances, say such a thing to such a man and you cannot mortify him worse. They delight (to use their own phrase) in seeing galled horses wince, and like flies, a sore place is a feast to them. Know, ye wretches, that the meanest insect, the trifling musqueto, the filthy bug have it in their power to give pain to men; but to be able to give pleasure to your fellow creatures, requires good nature and a kind and humane disposition, joined with talents to which ye seem to have no pretension.

X. Y.

If a sound body and a sound mind, which is as much as to say health and virtue, are to be preferred before all other considerations,—Ought not men, in choosing of a business either for themselves or children, to refuse such as are unwholesome for the body, and such as make a man too dependant, too much obliged to please others, and too much subjected to their humors in order to be recommended and get a livelihood.

I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with; how shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has?

Answer. Commend her among her female acquaintance.

To the Printer of the Gazette.

According to the request of your correspondent T. P., I send you my thoughts on the following case by him proposed, viz:

A man bargains for the keeping of his horse six months, whilst he is making a voyage to Barbadoes. The horse strays or is stolen soon after the keeper has him in possession. When the owner demands the value of his horse in money, may not the other as justly demand so much deducted as the keeping of the horse six months amounts to?

It does not appear that they had any dispute about the value of the horse, whence we may conclude there was no reason for such dispute, but it was well known how much he cost, and that he could not honestly have been sold again for more. But the value of the horse is not expressed in the case, nor the sum agreed for keeping him six months; wherefore in order to our more clear apprehension of the thing, let ten pounds represent the horse's value and three pounds the sum agreed for his keeping.

Now the sole foundation on which the keeper can found his demand of a deduction for keeping a horse he did not keep, is this. Your horse, he may say, which I was to restore to you at the end of six months was worth ten founds; if I now give you ten pounds it is an equivalent for your horse, and equal to returning the horse itself. Had I returned your horse (value 10l.) you would have paid me three pounds for his keeping, and therefore would have received in fact but seven pounds clear. You then suffer no injury if I now pay you seven pounds, and consequently you ought in reason to allow me the remaining three pounds according to our agreement.

But the owner of the horse may possibly insist upon being paid the whole sum of ten pounds, without allowing any deduction for his keeping after he was lost, and that for these reasons.

1. It is always supposed, unless an express agreement be made to the contrary, when horses are put out to keep, that the keeper is at the risque of them (unavoidable accidents only excepted, wherein no care of the keeper can be supposed sufficient to preserve them, such as their being slain by lightning or the like.) This you yourself tacitly allow when you offer to restore me the value of my horse. Were it otherwise, people having no security against a keeper's neglect or mismanagement would never put horses out to keep.

2. Keepers considering the risque they run, always demand such a price for keeping horses, that if they were to follow the business twenty years, they may have a living profit, though they now and then pay for a horse they have lost; and if they were to be at no risque they might afford to keep horses for less than they usually have. So that what a man pays for his horse's keeping, more than the keeper could afford to take if he ran no risque, is in the nature of a premium for the insurance of his horse. If I then pay you for the few days you kept my horse, you should restore me his full value.

3. You acknowledge that my horse eat of your hay and oats but a few days. It is unjust then to charge me for all the hay and oats that he only might have eat in the remainder of the six months, and which you have now still good in your stable. If, as the proverb says, it is unreasonable to expect a horse should void oats who never eat any, it is certainly as unreasonable to expect payment for those oats.

4. If men in such cases as this are to be paid for keeping horses when they were not kept, then they have a great opportunity of wronging the owners of horses. For by privately selling my horse for his value (ten pounds) soon after you had him in possession, and returning me at the expiration of the time only seven pounds, demanding three pounds as a deduction agreed for his keeping, you get that 3l. clear into your pocket, besides the use of my money six months for nothing.

5. But you say, the value of my horse being ten pounds, if you deduct three for his keeping and return me seven, it is all I would in fact have received had you returned my horse; therefore as I am no loser I ought to be satisfied: this argument, were there any weight in it, might serve to justify a man in selling as above, as many of the horses he takes to keep as he conveniently can, putting clear into his own pocket that charge their owner must have been at for their keeping, for this being no loss to the owners, he may say, where no man is a loser why should not I be a gainer. I need only answer to this, that I allow the horse cost me but ten pounds, nor could I have sold him for more, had I been disposed to part with him, but this can be no reason why you should buy him of me at that price, whether I will sell him or not. For it is plain I valued him at thirteen pounds, otherwise I should not have paid ten pounds for him and agreed to give you three pounds more for his keeping, till I had occasion to use him. Thus, though you pay me the whole ten pounds which he cost me, (deducting only for his keeping those few days) I am still a loser; I lose the charge of those days' keeping; I lose the three pounds at which I valued him above what he cost me, and I lose the advantage I might have made of my money in six months, either by the interest or by joining it to my stock in trade in my voyage to Barbadoes.

6. Lastly, whenever a horse is put to keep, the agreement naturally runs thus: The keeper says I will feed your horse six months on good hay and oats, if at the end of that time you will pay me three pounds. The owner says, if you will feed my horse six months on good hay and oats, I will pay you three pounds at the end of that time. Now we may plainly see, the keeper's performance of his part of the agreement must be antecedent to that of the owner; and the agreement being wholly conditional, the owner's part is not in force till the keeper has performed his. You then not having fed my horse six months, as you agreed to do, there lies no obligation on me to pay for so much feeding.

Thus we have heard what can be said on both sides. Upon the whole, I am of opinion that no deduction should be allowed for the keeping of the horse after the time of his straying.

I am yours, &c. THE CASUIST.

TO A COQUETTE.

The Lady was playing the Penserosa, and the Bard rallied her. She suddenly assumed the Allegra, and rallied him in turn. Whereupon he sung as follows:

Heave no more that breast of snow, With sighs of simulated wo, While Conquest triumphs on thy brow, And Hope, gay laughing in thine eye, Cheers the moments gliding by, Welcomes Joy's voluptuous train, Welcomes Pleasure's jocund reign, And whispers thee of transports yet in store, When fraught with Love's ecstatic pain, Shooting keen through every vein, Thy heart shall thrill with bliss unknown before. But smile not so divinely bright; Nor sport before my dazzled sight, That "prodigality of charms," That winning air, that wanton grace, That pliant form, that beauteous face, Zephyr's step, Aurora's smile; Nor thus in mimic fondness twine, About my neck thy snowy arms; Nor press this faded cheek of mine, Nor seek, by every witching wile, My hopes to raise, my heart to gain, Then laugh my love to scorn, and triumph in my pain. I love thee, Julia! Though the flush Of sprightly youth is flown— Though the bright glance, and rose's blush From eye and cheek and lip are gone— Though Fancy's frolic dreams are fled, Dispelled by sullen care— And Time's gray wing its frost has shed Upon my raven hair— Yet warm within my bosom glows, A heart that recks not winter's snows, But throbs with hope, and heaves with sighs For ruby lips and sparkling eyes; And still—the slave of amorous care— Would make that breast, that couch of Love, its lair.

TO THE SAME.

Shade! O shade those looks of light; The thrilling sense can bear no more! Veil those beauties from my sight, Which to see is to adore. That dimpled cheek, whose spotless white, The rays of Love's first dawning light, Tinge with Morning's rosy blush, And cast a warm and glowing flush, Even on thy breast of snow, And in thy bright eyes sparkling dance, And through the waving tresses glance That shade thy polished brow Who can behold, nor own thy power? Who can behold, and not adore? But like the wretch, who, doomed to endless pain, Raises to realms of bliss his aching eyes, To Heaven uplifts his longing arms in vain While in his tortured breast new pangs arise— Thus while at thy feet I languish, Stung with Love's voluptuous anguish, The smile that would my hopes revive, The witching glance that bids me live Shed on my heart one fleeting ray, One gleam of treacherous Hope display; But soon again in deep Despair I pine: The dreadful truth returns: "Thou never wilt be mine." Then shade! O shade those looks of light; The thrilling sense can bear no more! Veil those beauties from my sight, Which to see is to adore. But stay! O yet awhile refrain! Forbear! And let me gaze again! Still at thy feet impassioned let me lie, Tranced by the magic of thy thrilling eye; Thy soft melodious voice still let me hear, Pouring its melting music on my ear; And, while my eager lip, with transport bold, Presumptuous seeks thy yielded hand to press, Still on thy charms enraptured let me gaze, Basking ecstatic in thy beauty's blaze, Such charms 'twere more than Heaven to possess: 'Tis Heaven only to behold.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. X.

He scanned with curious and prophetic eye Whate'er of lore tradition could supply From Gothic tale, or song or fable old— Roused him still keen to listen and to pry. The Minstrel.

You judge the English character with too much favor Lionel, said Col. R——. The Englishman is not free! Though vain, arrogant, and imperious, there is not a more abject slave on earth. His boasting spirit, his full-mouthed independence and his lordly step quail to and he is ever crawling amid the purlieus or over the threshold of that fantastic temple of fashion called "Society." It is an endless contest between those who are initiated into its mysteries and those who crowd its avenues. Wealth batters down the door—assumes a proud niche in the chilling fane, and uniting itself to that silent yet powerful aristocracy which wields the oracles of the god, its breath can create you an exclusive, or its frown can degrade you to the vulgar herd. Rank, which is the idol of an Englishman's sleepless devotion, wealth because it is curiously akin to the former, and some indistinct conception of the difference between a people and the mob, render him, in his own conceit, a gentleman and a politician. His first thought if cast on a desert island would be his rank, and if he had companions in misfortune, he would ere night arrange the dignity and etiquette of intercourse. Literature seeks the same degrading arena, and alas! how few are there who do not deck the golden calf with the laurels won in the conflicts of genius, and who, stimulated solely by lucre, shed their momentary light athwart the horizon, even as the meteor whose radiance is exhaled from the corruption of a fœtid marsh. But there is a class who, ennobled by letters, are always independent; and though they be of the race of authors whom Sir Horace Walpole calls "a troublesome, conceited set of fellows," you will find them too proud and too honest to palter away the prerogatives of their station.

But we are now at the door of Elia; come, let me introduce you to one of his simple and unaffected suppers!

I cheerfully assented to this invitation, and following my conductor up a flight of crooked and dark steps, we entered into a room, over a brazier's shop. A dull light trembled through the small and narrow apartment where, shrouded in a close volume of tobacco smoke, sat in pensive gentility—the kind—the generous—the infant-hearted Charles Lamb; the man whose elastic genius dwelled among the mouldering ruins of by-gone days, until it became steeped in beauty and expanded with philosophy—the wit—the poet—the lingering halo of the sunshine of antiquity—the phœnix of the mighty past. He was of delicate and attenuated stature, and as fragilely moulded as a winter's flower, with a quick and volatile eye, a mind-worn forehead and a countenance eloquent with thought. Around a small table well covered with glasses and a capacious bowl, were gathered a laughing group, eyeing the battalia of the coming supper. Godwin's heavy form and intellectual face, with the swimming eye of (ες τε σε S. T. C. How quaint was his fancy!) Coleridge, flanked the margin of the mirth-inspiring bowl.

Col. R——'s introduction made me at home, and ere my hand had dropped from the friendly grasp of our host, he exclaimed—And you are truly from the land of the great plant? You have seen the sole cosmopolite spring from the earth. It is the denizen of the whole world, the tireless friend of the wretched, the bliss of the happy. You need no record of the empire of the red man. He has written his fadeless history on a tobacco leaf.

At this time Lamb was a clerk in the "India House," a melancholy and gloomy mansion, with grave courts, heavy pillars, dim cloisters, stately porticoes, imposing staircases and all the solemn pomp of elder days. Here for many years he drove the busy quill, and whiled away his tranquil evenings, in the dalliance of literature. He was an author belonging to his own exclusive school—a school of simplicity, grace and beauty. He neither skewered his pen into precise paragraphs, nor rioted in the verbose rotundity of the day. He picked up the rare and unpolished jewels which spangled the courts of Elizabeth and Charles, and they lost beneath his polishing hand neither their lustre nor value. He was a passionate and single hearted antiquary, ever laboring to prop up with a puny arm, the column on which was inscribed the literary glory of his country. He was familiar with the grace of Heywood, the harmony of Fletcher, the ease of Sir Philip Sydney, the delicacy and fire of Spenser, the sweetness of Carew, the power and depth of Marlow, the mighty verse of Shakspeare, the affected fustian of Euphues (Lilly) "which ran into a vast excess of allusion," and with the deep and sparkling philosophy of Burton. With all of them he held a "dulcified" converse, while his memory preserved from utter forgetfulness, many of those authors who to the eye of the world, had glittered like the flying fish a moment above the surface, only to sink deeper in the sea of oblivion.

Lamb possessed in an eminent degree, what Dryden called a beautiful turn of words and thoughts in poetry, and the easy swell of cadence and harmony which characterised his brief writings declared the generosity of his heart, and the fertility of his genius. He could sympathise with childhood's frolic, and his heart was full of boyish dreams, when he gazed on the play-ground of Eton, and exclaimed "what a pity to think that these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will be changed into frivolous members of parliament!" He had the rough magnanimity of the old English vein, mellowed into tenderness and dashed with a flexible and spinous humor. He was contented to worship poesy in its classic and antique drapery. With him the fountain of Hypocrene still gushed up its inspiring wave; and Apollo, attended by the Muses, the daughters of Memory, and escorted by the Graces, still haunted the mountains of Helicon, lingered among the hills of Phocis, or, mounted upon Pegasus, winged his radiant flight to the abode itself of heaven-born Poesy. These were the fixed principles of his taste, and he credulously smiled (for contempt found no place in his bosom) upon the sickly illustrations and naked imagery of modern song. His learning retained a hue of softness from the gentleness of his character, for he had gathered the blossoms untouched by the bitterness of the sciential apple. He extracted like the bee his honied stores from the wild and neglected flowers which bloomed among forgotten ruins, yet he was no plagiarist, no imitator, for he had invaded and lingered amid the dim sepulchres of the shadowy past, until he became its friend and cotemporary!

How has he obtained those curiously bound books, I whispered to Coleridge, as my eye fell on a column of shelves groaning under a mass of tattered volumes which would have fairly crazed my poor uncle?

Tell him Lamb! said Coleridge repeating my inquiry, give him the rank and file of your ragged regiment.

Slowly, and painfully as a neophyte, did I build the pile, replied Lamb. Its corner stone was that fine old folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, which, for a long year had peeped out from a bookseller's stall directly in my daily path to the India House. It bore the great price of sixteen shillings, and to me, who had no unsunned heap of silver, I gazed on it until I had almost violated the decalogue. Poetry made me an economist, and at the end of two months my garnered mites amounted to the requisite sum. Vain as a girl with her first lover, I bore it home in triumph, and that night my sister Bridget read "The Laws of Candy" while I listened with rapture to that deep and gurgling torrent of old English, which dashed its music from this broken cistern. To her is the honor due, her taste has called all these obsolete wits to my library, for she keenly relished their fantasies, and smiled at their gauderies. In early life she had been tumbled into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should be brought up in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it, but I can answer for it that (if the worst comes to the worst) it makes most incomparable old maids.

But there are some fearful gaps in my shelves, Mr. Granby! See! there a stately and reverend folio, like a huge eye-tooth, was rudely knocked out by a bold borrower of books, one of your smiling pirates, mutilator of collections, a spoiler of the symmetry of shelves, and a creator of odd volumes.

The conversation now became general, and many a little skiff was launched on the great ocean of commonplace. Lamb most cordially hated politics which he called "a splutter of hot rhetoric;" and he only remembered its battles and revolutions when connected with letters. He had heard of Pharsalia, but it was Lucan's and not Cæsar's; the battle of Lepanto was cornered in his memory because Cervantes had there lost an arm. The glorious days of the "Commonwealth" were hallowed by Milton and Waller, and he always turned with much address from the angry debates about the execution of Charles I. to the simple inquiry whether he or Doctor Ganden wrote the "Icon Basilike."

Godwin in vain essayed to introduce the "conduct of the ministry," and being repeatedly baffled, he said pettishly to Lamb, And what benefit is your freehold, if you do not feel interested in government?

Ah! I had a freehold it is true, the gift of my generous and solemn god-father, the oil-man in Holborn; I went down and took possession of my testamentary allotment of three quarters of an acre, and strode over it with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and earth was my own. Alas! it has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an Agrarian can restore it!

The bowl now danced from hand to hand, and I did not observe its operation until Lamb and Coleridge commenced an affectionate talk about Christ's Hospital, the blue coat boys, and all the treasured anecdotes of school-day friendship. This is the first and happiest stage of incipient intoxication, and the "willie-draughts" which are pledged to the memory of boyhood, ever inspire brighter and nobler sympathies, than are found in the raciest toasts to beauty, or the deepest libations to our country.

Do you not remember, said Lamb, poor Allan! whose beautiful countenance disarmed the wrath of a town-damsel whom he had secretly pinched, and whose half-formed execration was exchanged, when she, tigress-like turned round and gave the terrible bl—— for a gentler meaning, bless thy handsome face! And do you not remember when you used to tug over Homer, discourse Metaphysics, chaunt Anacreon, and play at foils with the sharp-edged wit of Sir Thomas Browne, how your eye glistened when you doffed the grotesque blue coat, and the inspired charity boy (this was uttered in an under tone) walked forth humanized by a christian garment. Spenser knew the nobility of heart which a new coat gives when he dressed his butterfly.

The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie The silken down with which his back is dight His broad outstretched horns, his hairy thighs His glorious colors, and his glistening eyes.

Col. R. now motioned to me to retire, and I bid a reluctant goodnight to the joyous scene, the exclamation "do you not remember!" from Coleridge, and the cheerful laugh ringing through the whole house and its dying echo following us to the street.

Gentle reader! the critics have called Lamb a trifler, the scholars have called him a twaddler! Read Elia, and let your heart answer for him.

THE PRAIRIE.

This word is pronounced by the common people pa-ra-re. I was in the peninsula of Michigan, and had been for a day or two traversing the most dreary country imaginable, when I saw for the first time a salt or wet prairie, which is only a swampy meadow, grown up in a rank, coarse, sedgy grass.

Not long after we began to catch glimpses of the upland prairies. These are either clear prairies, totally destitute of trees, or oak openings which consist of clear prairie and scattered trees. A clear prairie—a broad unvaried expanse—presents rather a monotonous appearance like the sea, but surely the human eye has never rested on more lovely landscapes than these oak openings present. They answered my conceptions of lawns, parks and pleasure grounds in England; they are the lawns, parks and pleasure grounds of nature, laid out and planted with an inimitable grace, fresh as creation.

In these charming woodlands are a number of small lakes, the most picturesque and delightful sheets of water imaginable. The prairies in the summer are covered with flowers. I am an indifferent botanist, but in a short walk I gathered twenty four species which I had not seen before. These flowers and woods and glittering lakes surpass all former conception of beauty. Each flower, leaf, and blade of grass, and green twig glistens with pendulous diamonds of dew. The sun pours his light upon the water and streams through the sloping glades. To a traveller unaccustomed to such scenes, they are pictures of a mimic paradise. Sometimes they stretch away far as the eye can reach, soft as Elysian meadows, then they swell and undulate, voluptuous as the warm billows of a southern sea.

In these beautiful scenes we saw numerous flocks of wild turkies, and now and then a prairie hen, or a deer bounding away through flowers. Here too is found the prairie wolf which some take to be the Asiatic jackall. It is so small as not to be dangerous alone. It is said however, that they hunt in packs like hounds, headed by a grey wolf. Thus they pursue the deer with a cry not unlike that of hounds, and have been known to rush by a farm-house in hot pursuit. The officers of the army stationed at the posts on the Prairies amuse themselves hunting these little wolves which in some parts are very numerous.

C. C.

RANDOM THOUGHTS.

The Age.—Its leading fault, to which we of America are especially obnoxious, is this: in Poetry, in Legislation, in Eloquence, the best, the divinest even of all the arts, seems to be laid aside more and more, just in proportion as it every day grows of greater necessity. It is still, as in Swift's time, who complains as follows: "To say the truth, no part of knowledge seems to be in fewer hands, than that of discerning when to have done."

Dancing.—The following are sufficiently amusing illustrations of the fine lines in Byron's Ode,

"You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet; Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?"

The French translation of St. John (de Creve cœur's) American Farmer's Letters—a book once very popular—was adorned with engravings, to fit it to the European imagination of the Arcadian state of things in America. The frontispiece presents an allegorical picture, in which a goddess of those robuster proportions which designate Wisdom, or Philosophy, leads by the hand an urchin—the type, no doubt, of this country—with ne'er a shirt upon his back. More delightfully still, however, in the back ground, is seen, hand in hand, with knee-breeches and strait-collared coats, a band of Pennsylvania quaker men, dancing, by themselves, a true old fashioned six-handed Virginia reel.

But of the Pyrrhic dance, more particularly: the learned Scaliger—that terror and delight of the critical world—assures us, in his Poetica, (book i, ch. 9) that he himself, at the command of his uncle Boniface, was wont often and long to dance it, before the Emperor Maximilian, while all Germany looked on with amazement. "Hanc saltationem Pyrrhicam, nos sæpe et diu, jussu Bonifacii patrui, coram divo Maximiliano, non sine stupore totius Germaniæ, representavimus."

Ariosto.—Has not the following curious testimony in regard to him escaped all his biographers? Montaigne, in his Essays, (vol. iii, p. 117, Johanneau's edition, in 8vo.) says, "J'eus plus de despit encores, que de compassion, de le veoir à Ferrare en si piteux estat, survivant à soy mesme, mecognoissant et soy et ses ouvrages; lesquels, sans son sςeu, et toutesfois en sa veue, on a mis en lumiere incorrigez et informes."

"I was touched even more with vexation than with compassion, to see him, at Ferrara, in a state so piteous, outliving himself, and incapable of recognizing either himself or his works; which last, without his knowledge, though yet before his sight, were given to the world uncorrected and unfinished."

Thin Clothing.—It would be difficult more skilfully to turn a reproach into a praise, than Byron has done, as to drapery too transparent, in his voluptuous description of a Venitian revel.

————"The thin robes, Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven,"

form the very climax of many intoxicating particulars.

The Greeks seem not to have practised a very rigorous reserve, as to the concealment of the person. The Lacedemonians, indeed, studiously suppressed, by their institutions, whatever of sexual modesty was not absolutely necessary to virtue. Among the Romans, however, the national austerity of manners made every violation of delicacy in this matter a great offence. Their Satyrists (as Seneca, Juvenal, and others) abound in allusions to the license of dress, which grew up, along with the other corruptions of their original usages. The words of Seneca, indeed, might almost be taken for a picture of a modern belle, in her ball-room attire. He says, in his De Beneficiis, "Video Sericas vestes, si vestes vocandæ sint, in quibus nihil est, quo defendi aut corpus, aut denique pudor, possit: quibus sumtis, mulier parum liquido, nudam se non esse, jurabit. Hæc, ingenti summa, ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus, accersuntur, ut matronæ nostræ ne adulteris quidem plus suis in cubiculo, quam in publico, ostendant." "I see, too, silken clothing—if clothing that can be called, which does not protect, nor even conceal the body—apparelled in which, a woman cannot very truly swear, that she is not naked. Such tissues are brought to us at enormous cost, from nations so remote that not even their names can reach us; and by the help of this vast expense, our matrons are able to exhibit, to their lovers and in their couches, nothing at which the whole public has not equally gazed."

Mythology.—Bryant and others have puzzled themselves not a little to give a rational explanation to the story of Ariadne; who, it will be remembered, was abandoned upon the isle of Naxos by her seducer, Theseus: but Bacchus chancing to come that way, fell upon the forlorn damsel, and presently made her his bride. All this may well puzzle a commentator, for the single reason, that it is perfectly plain and simple. The whole tale is nothing but a delicate and poetic way of stating the fact, that Mrs. Ariadne, being deserted by her lover, sought and found a very common consolation—that is to say, she took to drink.

Naples.—Its population of Lazzaroni appears, after all, to be but the legitimate inheritors of ancestral laziness. They were equally idle in Ovid's time: for he expressly calls that seat of indolence

———"in otia natam Parthenopen."

Exhibition of Grief.—There is a curious instance of the unbending austerity of Roman manners, in the trait by which Tacitus endeavors to paint the disorder with which the high-souled Agrippina received the news of the death of Germanicus. She was, at the moment, sewing in the midst of her maids; and so totally (says Tacitus) did the intelligence overthrow her self-command, that she broke off her work.

Snoring.—The following story of a death caused by it is entirely authentic. Erythræus relates that when Cardinal Bentivoglio—a scholar equally elegant and laborious—was called to sit in the Conclave, for the election of a successor to Urban VIII, the summons found him much exhausted by the literary vigils to which he was addicted. Immured in the sacred palace, (such is the custom while the Pope is not yet chosen,) his lodging was assigned him along side of a Cardinal, whose snoring was so incessant and so terrible, that poor Bentivoglio ceased to be able to obtain even the little sleep which his studies and his cares usually permitted him. After eleven nights of insomnolence thus produced, he was thrown into a violent fever. They removed him, and he slept—but waked no more.

Human Usefulness.—Wilkes has said, that of all the uses to which a man can be put, there is none so poor as hanging him. I hope that I may, without offence to any body's taste, add, that of all the purposes to which a soul can be put, I know of none less useful than damning it.

Sneezing.—It is the Catholics (see father Feyjoo for the fact) who trace the practice of bidding God bless a man when he sneezes, to a plague in the time of St. Gregory. He, they say, instituted the observance, in order to ward off the death of which this spasm had, till then, been the regular precursor, in the disease. If the story be true, such a plague had already happened, long before the day of St. Gregory. In the Odyssey, Penelope takes the sneezing of Telemachus for a good omen; and the army of Xenophon drew a favorable presage, as to one of his propositions, from a like accident: Aristotle speaks of the salutation of one sneezing as the common usage of his time. In Catullus's Acme and Sempronius, Cupid ratifies, by an approving sneeze, the mutual vows of the lovers. Pliny alludes to the practice, and Petronius in his Gyton. In Apuleius's Golden Ass, a husband hears the concealed gallant of his wife sneeze, and blesses her, taking the sternutation to be her own.

If there be a marvel or an absurdity, the Rabbins rarely fail to adorn the fiction or the folly with some trait of their own. Their account of the matter is, that in patriarchal days, men never died except by sneezing, which was then the only disease, and always mortal. Apparently then, the antiquity of the Scotch nation and of rappee cannot be carried back to the time of Jacob. Be this point of chronology as it may, however, it is certain that the same sort of observance, as to sneezing, was found in America at the first discovery.

Aristotle is politely of opinion that the salutation was meant as an acknowledgment to the wind, for choosing an inoffensive mode of escape. But a stronger consideration is necessary to account for the joy with which the people of Monopotama celebrate the fact, when their monarch sneezes. The salutation is spread by loud acclamations, over the whole city. So, too, when he of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers all turn their backs, and slap loudly their right thighs.

Honor.—The source of the following passage in Garth's Dispensary, is so obvious, that it is singular that no one has made the remark.

In the debate among the Doctors, when war is proposed, one of the Council speaks as follows.

Thus he: "'Tis true, when privilege and right Are once invaded, Honor bids us fight: But ere we yet engage in Honor's cause, First know what honor is, and whence its laws. Scorned by the base, 'tis courted by the brave; The hero's tyrant, yet the coward's slave: Born in the noisy camp, it feeds on air, And both exists by hope and by despair; Angry whene'er a moment's ease we gain, And reconciled at our returns of pain. It lives when in death's arms the hero lies; But when his safety he consults, it dies. Bigotted to this idol, we disclaim Rest, health and ease, for nothing but a name."

Implicit Faith.—I am delighted with the following excellent contrast of ignorant Orthodoxy with cultivated Doubt. It is from the learned and pious Le Clerc's Preface to his Bibliothèque Choisie, vol. vii, pp. 5, 6.

"Il n'y a, comme je crois, personne, qui ne préferât l'état d'une nation, où il y auroit beaucoup de lumières quoiqu'il y eût quelques libertins, à celui d'une nation ignorante et qui croiroit tout ce qu'on lui enseigneroit, ou qui au moins ne donneroit aucunes marques de douter des sentimens reçus. Les lumières produisent infailliblement beaucoup de vertu dans l'esprit d'une bonne part de ceux qui les reçoivent; quoiqu'il y ait des gens qui en abusent. Mais l'Ignorance ne produit que de la barbarie et des vices dans tous ceux qui vivent tranquillement dans leurs ténèbres. Il faudroit étre fou, par exemple, pour préferer ou pour égaler l'état auquel sont les Moscovites et d'autres nations, à l'égard de la Religion et de la vertu, à celni auquel sont les Anglois et les Hollandois, sous prétexte qu'il y a quelques libertins parmi ces deux peuples, et que les Moscovites et ceux qui leur ressemblent ne doubtent de rien."

"There is, I think, no one who would prefer the state of a nation, in which there was much intelligence, but some free thinkers, to that of a nation ignorant and ready to believe whatever might be taught it, or which, at least, would show no sign of doubting any of the received opinions. For knowledge never fails to produce much of virtue, in the minds of a large part of those who receive it, even though there be some who make an ill use of it. But Ignorance is never seen to give birth to any thing but barbarism and vice, in all such as dwell contentedly under her darkness. It would, for example, be nothing less than madness, to prefer or to compare the condition in which the Muscovites and some other nations are, as respects Religion and Virtue, to that of the English or Hollanders; under the pretext that there are, among the two latter nations, some free thinkers, and that the Muscovites and those who resemble them doubt of nothing."

The whole of this piece, indeed, is excellent, and full of candor, charity and sense, as to the temper and the principles of those who are forever striving to send into banishment, or shut up in prisons, or compel into eternal hypocrisy, all such opinions as have the misfortune to differ with their own.

Friendships.—There are people whose friendship is very like the Santee Canal in South Carolina: that is to say, its repairs cost more than the fee simple is worth.

Benefits.—There are many which must ever be their own reward, great or small. Others are positively dangerous. That subtle courtier, Philip de Comines, declares, that it is exceedingly imprudent to do your prince services for which a fit recompense is not easily found:¹ and Tacitus avers that obligations too deep are sure to turn to hatred.² Seneca pursues the matter yet further, and insists that he, whom your excessive services have thus driven to ingratitude, presently begins to desire to escape the shame of such favors, by putting out of the world their author.³ Cicero, too, is clearly of opinion, that enmity is the sure consequence of kindness carried to the extreme.⁴

¹ "Il se fault bien garder de faire tant de services à son maistre, qu'on l'empesche d'en trouver la juste recompense."—Memoires.

² "Beneficia eo usque læta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse: ubi multum antivenere, pro gratiâ odium redditur."

³ "Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat."

⁴ "Qui si non putat satisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo potest."

Heroes.—Marshal de Saxe is accustomed to get the credit of a very clever saying, "that no man seems a hero to his own valet de chambre." Now, not to speak of the scriptural apothegm, "that a prophet has no honor in his own country," the following passage from Montaigne will be found to contain precisely the Marshal's idea.

"Tel a esté miraculeux au monde, auquel sa femme et son valet n'ont rien veu seulement de remarquable. Peu d'hommes ont esté admirez par leurs domestiques: nul n'a esté prophète, non seulement en sa maison, mais en son pais, diet l'expérience des histoires."—Essais, vol. v, p. 198.

"Such an one has seemed miraculous to the world, in whom his wife and his valet could not even perceive any thing remarkable. Few men have ever been admired by their own servants; none was ever a prophet in his own country, still less in his own household."

ODDS AND ENDS.

MR. EDITOR,—Many months having passed away since I last addressed you, I have flattered myself, as most old men are apt to do on such occasions, that you might very possibly begin to feel some little inclination to hear from me once more. Know then, my good sir, that I am still in the land of the living, and have collected several "odds and ends" of matters and things in general, which you may use or not, for your "Messenger," as the fancy strikes you.

Among the rest, I will proceed to give you a new classification of the Animal Kingdom—at least so far as our own race is concerned; a classification formed upon principles materially different from those adopted by the great father of Natural History—Linnæus, who you know, classed us with whales and bats, under the general term, Mammalia! Now, I have always thought this too bad—too degrading for the lords and masters (as we think ourselves) of all other animals on the face of the earth; and who deserve a distinct class to themselves, divided too into more orders than any other—nay, into separate orders for the two sexes. With much study, therefore, and not less labor, I have digested a system which assumes mental—instead of bodily distinctions, as much more certain and suitable guides in our researches. This may be applied without either stripping or partially exposing the person, as father Linnæus' plan would compel us to do, whenever we were at a loss to ascertain (no unfrequent occurrence by the way, in these days) whether the object before us was really one of the Mammalia class or not: for such are the marvellous, ever-varying metamorphoses wrought by modern fashions in the exteriors of our race, that the nicest observers among us would be entirely "at fault" on many occasions, to tell whether it was fish, flesh, or fowl that they saw. My plan, therefore, has at least one material advantage over the other; and it is quite sufficient, I hope, very soon to carry all votes in its favor.

With whales and bats we shall no longer be classed!—if your old friend can possibly help it; and he is not a little confident of his powers to do so; for he believes he can demonstrate that there is not a greater difference between the form, size and habits of the bats and whales themselves, than he can point out between the manners, customs, pursuits, and bodily and mental endowments of the different orders of mankind; and, therefore, ex necessitate rei, there should be a classification different from any yet made. The honor of this discovery, I here beg you to witness, that I claim for myself.

Before I proceed farther, I will respectfully suggest a new definition of man himself; as all heretofore attempted have been found defective. The Greeks, for example, called him "Anthropos"—an animal that turns his eyes upwards; forgetting (as it would seem) that all domestic fowls, especially turkeys, ducks and geese, frequently do the same thing; although it must be admitted, that the act in them is always accompanied by a certain twist of the head, such as man himself generally practices when he means to look particularly astute. One of their greatest philosophers—the illustrious Plato—perceiving the incorrectness of this definition, attempted another, and defined man to be "a two legged animal without feathers:" but this very inadequate description was soon "blown sky high" by the old cynic Diogenes, who, having picked a cock quite clean of his plumage, threw him into Plato's school, crying out at the same time, "Behold Plato's man!" True, this is an old story; but none the worse for that. This was such "a settler,"—to borrow a pugilistic term—as completely to discourage, for a long time, all farther attempts to succeed in this very difficult task; nor indeed, do I recollect, from that day to the present, any now worth mentioning. "The grand march of mind," however, has become of late years, so astoundingly rapid, and so many things heretofore pronounced to be unknowable, have been made as plain as the nose on our faces, that Man himself—the great discoverer of all these wonders, should no longer be suffered (if his own powers can prevent it) to be consorted, as he has so long been, with a class of living beings so vastly inferior to himself. To rescue him therefore from this degradation, shall be my humble task, since it is one of those attempts wherein—even to fail—must acquire some small share of glory.

I will define him then, to be A self-loving, self-destroying animal, and will maintain the correctness and perfectly exclusive character of the definition, against all impugners or objectors, until some one of them can point out to me among all the living beings on the face of the earth, either any beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, or animalcula, that is distinguished by these very opposite and directly contradictory qualities. Man alone possesses—man alone displays them both; and is consequently distinguished from all the rest of animated nature in a way that gives him an indisputable right to a class of his own.

I will next proceed to enumerate the different orders into which this most wonderful class is divided. The females, God bless them, being entitled, by immemorial usage, to the first rank, shall receive the first notice; and I will rank in the first order all those who have unquestionable claims to pre-eminence.

Order 1st. The Loveables.—This order is very numerous, and forms by far the most important body in every community, being distinguished by all the qualities and endowments—both physical and intellectual—which can render our present state of existence most desirable—most happy. Their beauties charm—their virtues adorn every walk of life. All that is endearing in love and affection—either filial, conjugal, or parental: all that is soothing and consolatory in affliction; all that can best alleviate distress, cheer poverty, or mitigate anguish: every thing most disinterested, most enduring, most self-sacrificing in friendship—most exemplary in the performance of duty: all which is most delightful in mental intercourse, most attractive and permanently engaging in domestic life: in short, every thing that can best contribute to human happiness in this world, must be ascribed, either directly or indirectly, much more to their influence than to all other temporal causes put together; and would the rest of their sex only follow their admirable example, this wretched world of ours would soon become a secondary heaven.

Order 2d. The Conclamantes, which, for the benefit of your more English readers, I will remark, is a Latin word, meaning—those who clamor together. They possess two qualities or traits in common with certain birds, such as rooks, crows and blackbirds, that is, they are gregarious and marvellously noisy; for whenever they collect together, there is such a simultaneous and apparently causeless chattering in the highest key of their voices, as none could believe but those who have had the good or ill fortune (I will not say which) to hear it. But there is this marked characteristic difference. The latter utter sounds significant of sense, and perfectly intelligible, often very sprightly and agreeable too, when you can meet them one at a time; nor is juxta-position at all necessary to their being heard; for you will always be in ear-shot of them, although separated by the entire length or breadth of the largest entertaining-room any where to be found. Their proper element—the one wherein they shine, or rather sound most—is the atmosphere of a "sware-ree" party, or a squeeze: but as to the particular purpose for which Nature designed them, I must e'en plead ignorance; not, my good sir, that I would have you for one moment to suppose, that I mean any invidious insinuation by this excuse.

Order 3d. The Ineffables.—I almost despair of finding language to describe—even the general appearance of this order, much less those mental peculiarities by which they are to be distinguished from the rest of their sex. But I must at least strive to redeem my pledge, and therefore proceed to state, that they rarely ever seem to be more than half alive: that their countenances always indicate (or are designed to do so) a languor of body scarcely bearable, and the most touching—the most exquisite sensibility of soul; that even the most balmy breezes of spring, should they accidentally find access to them, would visit them much too roughly: that to speak above a low murmur would almost be agony, and to eat such gross food as ordinary mortals feed upon would be certain death. As to their voices, I am utterly hopeless of giving the faintest idea, unless permitted both to resort to supposition and to borrow Nic Bottom's most felicitous epithet of "a sucking dove." You have only to imagine such a thing, (it is no greater stretch of fancy than writers often call upon us to make) and then to imagine what kind of tones "a sucking-dove" would elicit; and you will certainly have quite as good an idea of the voice of an Ineffable as you could possibly have, without actually hearing it. No comparison drawn from any familiar sounds can give the faintest idea of it, for it is unique and sui generis. This order serves the admirable moral purpose of continually teaching, in the best practicable manner, the virtue of patience to all—who have anything to do with it.

Order 4th. The Tongue-tied, or Monosyllabic.—This order can scarcely be described—unless by negations; for they say little or nothing themselves, and, therefore, but little or nothing can be said of them; unless it were in the Yankee mode of guessing; which, to say the least of it, would be rather unbecoming in so scientific a work as I design mine to be. The famous Logadian Art of extracting sun-beams from cucumbers would be quite easy in practice compared with the art of extracting anything from these good souls beyond a "yes" or a "no," as all have found to their cost, who ever tried to keep up the ball of conversation among them; the labor of Sysiphus was child's play to it. They serve however one highly useful purpose, and that is, to furnish a perpetual refutation of the base slander which one of the old English poets has uttered against the whole sex in these often quoted lines—

"I think, quoth Thomas, women's tongues Of aspen-leaves are made."

Order 5th. In vivid and startling contrast to the preceding order, I introduce—The hoidening Tom-Boys. These are a kind of "Joan D'Arkies," (if I may coin such a term), female in appearance, but male in impudence, in action, in general deportment. They set at naught all customary forms, all public sentiment, all those long established canons, sanctioned by both sexes, for regulating female conduct; and they practise, with utter disregard of consequences, all such masculine feats and reckless pranks, as must unsex them, so far as behavior can possibly do it. They affect to despise the company of their own sex; to associate chiefly with ours, but with the most worthless part of them, provided only, they be young, wild, prodigal and in common parlance—fashionable, and alike regardless of what may be thought or said of them. The more delicate their figures, the more apparently frail their constitutions, the greater seems to be their rage for exhibiting the afflicting contrast between masculine actions performed with powers fully adequate to achieve them, and attempted—apparently at the risk of the limbs, if not the lives, of the rash and nearly frantic female adventurers. Egregiously mistaking eccentricity for genius—outrages upon public sentiment for independence of spirit, and actions which should disgrace a man, or render him perfectly ridiculous, for the best means of catching a husband, they make themselves the pity of the wise and good, the scorn and derision of all the other orders of the community, who see through the flimsy and ridiculous veil of their conduct, the true motives from which it proceeds.

Order 6th. The Hydrophobists.—These are, at all times, such haters of water—especially if that unsavory article called soap be mixed with it—that insanity is by no means necessary, as in the case of animals affected by canine madness, to elicit their characteristic feeling. Their persons and their houses too, when they have any, all present ocular proofs of it; proofs, alas! which nothing but the luckless objects of their hatred can "expunge," if I may borrow a term lately become very fashionable. Whether this antipathy be natural or superinduced by the dread of catching cold, I can not pretend to say; but its effects are too notorious, too often matters of the most common observation, for its existence to be doubted. The striking contrast, however, which it exhibits to that admirable quality—cleanliness, aids much in teaching others the duty of acquiring and constantly practising the latter.

Order 7th. The Bustlers.—The difference between this order and the last mentioned is so great, so radical, so constantly forced upon our notice, that they might almost be ranked in distinct classes: for the members of the order now under consideration, are such dear lovers of both the articles which the others hate, as to keep them in almost ceaseless appliance. At such times, neither the members of their families, nor their guests, can count, for many minutes together, upon remaining safe from involuntary sprinklings and ablutions. And what—with their usual accompaniments of dusters, brooms, mops, and scrubbing brushes, if you find any secure place either to sit or stand, you will owe it more to your good luck than to any preconcerted exemption between the mistresses and their operatives. "Fiat cleaning up, ruat cælum," is both their law and their practice. After all however, they are, in general, well meaning, good hearted souls; those only excepted among them, whose perpetual motion is kept up by a modicum of the Xantippe blood, which developes its quality in such outward appliances to the heads, backs and ears of their servants—as key-handles, sticks, switches, boxings and scoldings.

Order 8th. The Peace-Sappers.—These, like the underground artists, after whom I have ventured in part to name them, always work secretly; but whereas, the sappers employed in war, confine their humane labors solely to the immediate destruction of walls, fortifications and houses, with all their inhabitants, thereby putting the latter out of their misery at once; the peace-sappers make the excellence of their art to consist in causing the sufferings which they inflict to be protracted—even to the end of life, be that long or short. The master spirits of this order view with ineffable scorn such of their formidable sisterhood as are incapable, from actual stupidity, of exciting any other kind of family and neighborhood quarrels, than those plain, common-place matters which soon come to an explanation, and end in a renewal of friendly intercourse and a reciprocation of good offices. They despise—utterly despise—such petty game; and never attempt sapping but with a confident belief—not only that its authors will escape all suspicion, but that its effects will be deeply and most painfully felt—probably during the entire lives of all its devoted victims. Their powers of flattery and skill in every species of gossipping, gain them an easy admittance, before they are found out, into most families wherein they have set their hearts upon becoming visiters. There they are always eager listeners to every thing that may be said in the careless, innocent hours of domestic intercourse; and being entirely unsuspected plotters of mischief, they treasure up as a miser would his gold, every single word or expression that can possibly be so tortured as to embroil their confiding hosts with some one or all of their neighbors. If no word nor expression has been heard during a long intercourse which can either fairly or falsely be imputed to envy, jealousy or ill-will towards others; absolute falsehoods will most artfully be fabricated to attain their never-forgotten, never-neglected purpose: for they sicken at the very sight of family peace—of neighborhood-harmony; and "the gall of bitterness," that incessantly rankles in their bosoms can find no other vent—no other alleviation—than in laboring to destroy every thing of the kind. Their communications being always conveyed under the strongest injunctions of secrecy—the most solemn protestations of particular regard and friendship for the depositaries of these secrets, it often happens that entire neighborhoods are set in a flame, and most of the families in it rendered bitter enemies to each other, without a single one knowing, or even suspecting what has made them so.

The Romans had a most useful custom of tying a wisp of hay around the horns of all their mischievous and dangerous cattle, by way of caveat to all beholders to keep out of their way: and could some similar contrivance be adopted for distinguishing the Peace-Sappers, as far off as they could be seen, the inventor thereof would well deserve the united thanks and blessings of every civilized community.

Order 9th. The Linguis Bellicosæ, or Tongue Warriors.—The distinguishing characteristic of this order is, an insatiable passion for rendering their faculty of speech the greatest possible annoyance to all of their own race—whether men, women or children, who come in their way: and few there are who can always keep out of it, however assiduously they may strive to do so. Most of them are very early risers, for the unruly evil, as St. James calls it, is a great enemy to sleep. When once on their feet, but a few minutes will elapse before you hear their tongues ringing the matutinal peal to their servants and families. But far, very far, different is it from that of the church-going bell, which is a cheering signal of approaching attempts to do good to the souls of men; whereas the tongue-warrior's peal is a summons for all concerned to prepare for as much harm being done to their bodies as external sounds, in their utmost discord, can possibly inflict. Nothing that is said or done can extort a word even of approbation much less of applause; for the feeling that would produce it does not exist; but a cataract is continually poured forth of personal abuse, invective and objurgation, which, if it be not quite as loud and overwhelming as that of Niagara, is attributable more to the want of power, than of the will to make it so. It has been with much fear and trembling, my good sir, that I have ventured to give you the foregoing description; nor should I have done it, had I not confided fully in your determination not to betray me to these hornets in petticoats.

Having done with the description of the female orders of our race, as far as I can, at present recollect their number and distinctive characters, I now proceed to that of my own sex.

Order 1st. The Great and Good Operatives.—Although in counting this order I will not venture quite as far as the Latin poet who asserted, that "they were scarce as numerous as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the Nile," it must be admitted that the number is most deplorably small, compared with that of the other orders. The multum in parvo, however, applies with peculiar force to the Great and Good Operatives. All the orders certainly have intellects of some kind, which they exercise after fashions of their own—sometimes beneficially to themselves and others; then again injuriously, if not destructively to both. But only the individuals of this order always make the use of their mental powers for which they were bestowed; and hence it is that I have distinguished them as I have done. How far this distinction is appropriate, others must decide, after an impartial examination of the grounds upon which I mean to assert the justice of its claim to be adopted. Here they are. It is to this order we must ascribe all which is truly glorious in war, or morally and politically beneficial in peace: to the exercise of their talents, their knowledge and their virtues, we are indebted for every thing beneficent in government or legislation; and by their agency, either direct or indirect, are all things accomplished which can most conduce to the good and happiness of mankind; unless it be that large portion of the god-like work which can better be achieved by the first order of the other sex.

Order 2d. Ipomœa Quamoclit, or the Busy Bodies.—These, like the little plants after which I have ventured to name them, have a surprising facility at creeping or running, either under, through, around, or over any obstacles in their way. Their ruling passion consists in a most inordinate and unexplainable desire to pry into and become thoroughly acquainted with every person's private concerns, but their own; to the slightest care or examination of which, they have apparently an invincible antipathy. Has any person a quarrel or misunderstanding with one or more of his neighbors, they will worm out, by hook or by crook, all the particulars; not with any view, even the most distant, of reconciling the parties, (for peace-making is no business of theirs), but for the indescribable pleasure of gaining a secret, which all their friends, as the whole of their acquaintance are called, will be invited, as fast as they are found, to aid them in keeping. Is any man or woman much in debt, the neighboring busy-bodies will very soon be able to give a better account of the amount than the debtors themselves; but it will always be communicated with such earnest injunctions of secrecy from the alleged fear of injuring the credit of the parties, as to destroy that credit quite as effectually as a publication of bankruptcy would do. Does the sparse population of a country neighborhood afford so rare and titillating a subject as a courtship, it furnishes one of the highest treats a busy-body can possibly have; and it not unfrequently happens that this courtship is, at least interrupted, if not entirely broken off, by the exuberant outpourings and embellishments of his delight at possessing such a secret, and at the prospect of participating in all the customary junketings and feastings upon such joyous occasions. The whole of this order are great carriers and fetchers of every species of country intelligence; great intimates (according to their account) of all great people; and above all—great locomotives. But, unlike their namesakes, the machines so called, they rarely if ever move straightforward; having a decided preference for that kind of zig-zag, hither and thither course, which takes them, in a time inconceivably short, into every inhabited hole and corner within their visiting circle, which is always large enough to keep them continually on the pad.

N.B. There is an order of the other sex so nearly resembling the one just described, that I am in a great quandary whether I should not have united them, since the principal difference which I can discover, after much study is, that the former wears petticoats and the latter pantaloons. You and your readers must settle it, for Oliver Oldschool can not.

Order 3d. Noli me tangere, or Touch me not.—These are so super-eminently sensitive and irritable, that should you but crook your finger at them apparently by way of slight, nothing but your blood can expiate the deadly offence: and whether that blood is to be extracted by a bout at fisty cuffs or cudgelling, or by the more genteel instrumentality of dirk, sword or pistol, must depend upon the relative rank and station of the parties concerned. If you belong not to that tribe embraced by the very comprehensive but rather equivocal term—gentlemen, you may hope to escape with only a few bruises or scarifications; but should your luckless destiny have placed you among them, death or decrepitude must be your portion, unless you should have the fortune to inflict it on your adversary.

Order 4th. The Gastronomes.—The description of this order requires but few words. Their only object in life seems to be—to tickle their palates, and to provide the ways and means of provoking and gratifying their gormandizing appetites. They would travel fifty miles to eat a good dinner, sooner than move fifty inches to do a benevolent action; and would sacrifice fame, fortune and friends, rather than forego what they call the pleasures of the table. They show industry in nothing but catering for their meals; animation in nothing but discussions on the qualities and cookery of different dishes; and the only strong passion they ever evince is, that which reduces them merely to the level of beasts of prey. During the brief period of their degraded existence, they live despised and scoffed at by all but their associates, and die victims to dropsy, gout, palsy and apoplexy.

Order 5th. The Brain Stealers.—The chief difference between this and the preceding order is, that the former steal their own brains by eating, the latter by drinking. For the idea conveyed by the term brain-stealers, I acknowledge myself indebted to Cassio in the play of Othello, where, in a fit of remorse for getting drunk, he is made to exclaim, "Oh! that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" This order may well follow its predecessor in dignity, or rather in uselessness, since the greatest optimist ever born would be puzzled to find out the way in which either can render any real, essential service to mankind. Although the alleged excuse for their practice—so long as they retain sense enough to offer any—is to cheer the spirits—to gladden the heart, the undeniable effect of that practice is, to depress the one, and to pain the other. Melancholy expels merriment, and the solitary feeling banishes the social; for the intolerable shame inspired by the consciousness of the self-larceny they are continually committing, drives them into secret places for its perpetration; and into solitude during the short intervals between their self-destructive acts, to brood over their own indelible disgrace, the hopeless misery they inflict on all their friends and relatives, and the damning guilt they incur if there be any truth in Holy Writ—any such thing as eternal punishment in another world, for deeds voluntarily perpetrated in our present state of existence. But these are matters which never for a moment seem to arrest their desperate course. During the few intervals of sanity which chance rather than design seems to afford them, the retrospect is so full of self-condemnation, agonizing remorse, and awful anticipations of future retribution, of future and eternal punishment, that they recklessly hasten to drown all feeling—all consciousness of existence in the deadly draughts which they continually swallow. Thus they linger out their brief and pitiable lives in a kind of comatose stupor—a wretched burden and disgrace to themselves and a misery beyond description to all connected with them.

Order 6th. The Devilish Good Fellows.—These possess, in an eminent degree, the art of concealing much thorough selfishness under the guise of what are called companionable qualities; for although loud professors of sociality and great company keepers, (except that of the ladies, which they never voluntarily seek,) they mix in society rather oftener at other people's expense than their own. Their money is lavished chiefly on themselves, except the modicum most skilfully expended in purchasing a character for generosity, and that which in common parlance is miscalled good fellowship. This is easily and often most profitably done, by giving a few well-timed dinners, suppers, and card-parties to their select companions and bosom friends, whose money they scruple not to win on such occasions to the last cent; having first made these dear objects of their disinterested regard drunk, while they kept sober for the purpose, although apparently encountering a similar risk of intoxication. All they do is for effect—for gulling others to their own advantage, rather than for any particular pleasure which they themselves derive from their own actions. Thus they become uproarious at the convivial board, not so much from impulse as design; not to excite themselves but their companions; and frequently clamor for "pushing the bottle," (for they are brain stealers) more to stultify others than to exhilirate their own feelings. They are great depositaries and retailers of all such anecdotes and stories as are called good, but rather on account of their obscenity than their genuine humor or wit. Now and then they incontinently perpetrate puns; make practical jokes; and are always merry in appearance, (whatever the real feelings may be) so far as antic contortions of the risible muscles can make them so. But they are utter strangers to that genuine hilarity of heart which imparts perennial cheerfulness to the countenances of all who are blessed with it, and which springs from a consciousness—both of good motives and good actions. Their lives are spent in a feverish course of sensuality—often of the lowest, the very grossest kind; and they generally die of a miserable old age, just as truly rational, temperate and moral people reach the prime of life.

Order 7th. The Philo-Mammonites, or Money Lovers.—Although this term would comprehend a most numerous and motley host, if the mere existence of the passion itself were deemed a sufficient distinction, yet I mean to apply the designation only to such abortions of our race as love money for itself alone, independently as it would seem, both of its real and adventitiously exchangeable value. Others burn with affection for the beloved article, only as a means to attain the ends which they most passionately desire. These ends are as countless as the sands; some, for example, make it the grand object of their temporal existence to buy fine clothes, others fine equipages; others again fine houses, fine furniture, fine pictures, fine books—in short, fine any thing which the world calls so, whatever they themselves may think of it; for, as Dr. Franklin most truly says, "other peoples' eyes cost us more than our own." The exclusive money-lovers despise what others love; with "the fleshly lusts that war against the souls" of other men, and cost money, they have nothing to do—no, not they! and even the common necessaries and comforts of life are all rejected for the sake of making, hoarding, and contemplating the dear—all-absorbing object of the only affection they are capable of feeling. In this respect, the money lover differs entirely, not only from all other human beings, but from every race of brutes, reptiles, and insects yet discovered. They, for instance, accumulate the food which they love, evidently for use, and not solely to look at, to gloat upon, as the ultimate, the exclusive source of gratification. Their accumulation, therefore, is but the means of attaining the end—consumption, from which all their real enjoyment seems to be anticipated. The propensity to collect for future use, which is called instinct in the latter, is identical with what is deemed the love of money, as it operates upon all the orders of mankind, except the Philo Mammonites. With the former, it is not the money they love, but something for which they have a passionate regard, that they know their money can procure: with the latter, the sole enjoyment (if indeed they may be thought capable of any) seems to consist in the mere looking at their hoards, and in the consciousness of being able to exclaim—"all this is mine, nothing but the inexorable tyrant death can take it away. Let others call it pleasure and happiness to spend money, if they are fools enough to do so; we deem it the only pleasure and happiness to make and keep it." To such men, the common feelings of humanity—the ordinary ties that bind together families and communities, are things utterly incomprehensible; and consequently neither the sufferings of their fellow men, nor their utmost miseries are ever permitted, for one moment, to interfere with that darling object which occupies their souls, to the exclusion of all others. This they for ever pursue, with an ardor that no discouragement can check; a recklessness of public sentiment that defies all shame; and often with a degree of self-inflicted want, both of food and raiment, which must be witnessed to be believed.

Order 8th. The Confiscators.—In this order must be included (strange as it may seem) not only all thieves, pickpockets, swindlers, robbers and professional gamblers, but even many others, who, although professing most sanctimonious horror at the bare idea of violating the letter of the laws relative to property, scruple not to disregard their spirit, whenever pelf is to be made by it. To make money is the great end of their existence; but the means are left to time and circumstances to suggest—always, however, to be used according to the law-verbal, in such cases made and provided. The general title indicates rather the wills than the deeds of the whole order; the former being permanent, intense, and liable to no change—whereas the latter terminate, now and then, in such uncomfortable results as loss of character, imprisonment, and hanging. Self-appropriation, without parting with any equivalent, without incurring any loss that can possibly be avoided, is the cardinal, the paramount law with every grade: they differ only in the "modus operandi." Some, for example, work by fraud—others by force; some by superior skill, or exclusive knowledge—while hosts of others rely for success upon practising on the passions and vices, or the innocence and gullibility of their fellow-men. To do this the more effectually, they make much use of the terms justice, honesty, fair-dealing, in their discourse, but take special care to exclude them from their practice; for they are to prosper, even should the Devil take all at whose expense that prosperity has been achieved, if, indeed, he deemed them worth taking, after their dear friends, the confiscators, have done with them.

Order 9th. The Blatterers.—Although this word is now nearly obsolete, or degraded to the rank of vulgarisms, in company with many other good old terms of great force and fitness, once deemed of sterling value, I venture to use it here, because I know, in our whole language, no other so perfectly descriptive of this order; nor, indeed, any other which conveys the same idea. And here (if you will pardon another digression) I cannot forbear to express my regret at being compelled, as it were, to take leave of so many old acquaintances in our mother tongue, who have been expelled from modern parlance and writing. Our literary tastes and language will require but very little more sublimation—little more polishing and refining, to render that tongue scarcely intelligible to persons whose misfortune it was to be educated some half century ago, unless, indeed, they will go to school again. To call things by their right names, is among the "mala prohibita" in the canons of modern criticism; the strength, fitness, and power of old words, must give way to the indispensable euphony of new ones; and all the qualities once deemed essential to good style, must now be sacrificed, or, at least, hold a far inferior rank to mere smoothness, polish, and harmony of diction. I might give you quite a long catalogue of highly respectable and significant old words, once the legal currency of discourse, which have long since been turned out of doors, to make room for their modern correlatives; but neither my time nor space will permit me to mention more than the following, out of some hundreds. For instance, my old acquaintance, and perhaps yours, the word "breeches," has been dismissed for "unmentionables," or "inexpressibles;"—"shifts" and "petticoats" are now yclept "under dress;" and even "hell" itself, according to the authority of a highly polished Divine, perhaps now living, must hereafter be softened and amplified into the phrase, "a place which politeness forbids to mention." But let me return to the description of the Blattering order.

To say, as I was very near doing, that their peculiar trait is "to have words at will," would have conveyed a very false notion; for that phrase is properly applicable only to such persons as can talk or be silent—can restrain or pour out their discourse at pleasure. But the Blatterers, although their words are as countless as the sands, seem to exercise no volition over them whatever, any more than a sieve can be said to do over the water that may be poured into it. Through and through the liquid will and must run, be the consequences what they may; and out of the mouths of the Blatterers must their words issue, let what will happen. So invariable is this the case, that we might almost say of their discourse as the Latin poet has so happily said of the stream of Time:

"Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum."

They will unconsciously talk to themselves, if they can find no one else to talk to; but this soliloquizing they are rarely forced to perform—for so great are their diligence and tact in hunting up some unlucky wight or other upon whom to vent their words, that they are seldom unsuccessful in their search. Horace, in one of his epistles, has most pathetically described, in his own person, the sufferings of all those who are so luckless as to be caught by one of these very benevolent tormentors of their species; and he has hit off, most admirably, their multiform powers of inflicting annoyance. But many ways and means, never "dreamt of in his philosophy," have since been discovered, which it devolves upon others, far his inferiors, to describe. In regard, for instance, to the choice of subjects, if a Blatterer may be deemed capable of choosing, our modern logocracies have opened a field of almost boundless extent, which, in Horace's day, was a "terra incognita." Their loquacity would utterly shame that ancient braggart, whose boast it was, that he could extemporize two hundred Latin verses, while standing on one leg; and their matchless talents for political mistification—for comminuting, and spreading out all sorts of materials susceptible of being used for party purposes, were never called forth, and consequently never developed, until many a century after Horace was in his grave. The present age—I may say, the present times, may justly claim the distinguished honor not only of furnishing more aliment for the nurture of the Blattering order than any other age or times—but, on the political economy principle, that, "demand will always beget supply," to them must be awarded the exclusive merit of furnishing a much greater number of such patriotic operatives than ever could be found before, since our father Noah left his ark. In proof of this assertion, I would ask, where is there now any hole or corner, either in public or private life, in which Blatterers may not often be heard? Where is there any electioneering ground—any hustings to hold an election—any forensic assemblage, or legislative halls, exempt entirely from these most successful confounders and despisers of all grammatical and rhetorical rules—of all the plainest dictates of common sense? As every thing they utter seems the result rather of chance than design, it might be supposed that the former would occasionally lead them, (especially when acting as public functionaries,) at least into some approximation towards argument or eloquence; but, alas! no such chance ever befalls them. By a kind of fatality, apparently unsusceptible of change or "shadow of turning," all their efforts at either eloquence or argument, turn out most pitiable or ridiculous abortions; for they invariably mistake assertion for the latter, and empty, bombastic declamation and gasconading for the former. Vociferation they always mistake for sense, and personal abuse of every body opposed to them, for the best means of promoting what they understand by the term, "public good"—meaning, thereby, the good of whatever party they take under their special care.

Order 10th. The Would Be's, or Preposterous Imitators.—This, probably, is the most numerous of all the orders of our class, although very far from comprehending the whole human race, as that witty satyrist Horace would have us believe, with his "Nemo contentus vivat." But it includes all, who by their array and management of "the outward man," would pass themselves off, upon society, for something upon which nature has put her irrevocable veto. Some few of the brute creation have been charged (falsely as I humbly conceive) with this warring against her absolute decrees; for, as far as we can judge, they are all perfectly content with their own forms and conditions, and live out their respective times without apeing, or manifesting any desire to ape, either the appearance or manners of their fellow-brutes, as we so often and abortively do those of our fellow-men. It is true that the monkey, one of the accused parties, seems to possess no small talent in this way; but if the exercise of it were fully understood, it appears probable that we should always find it to be done at our expense, and in derision of those only who are continually aping something above their powers—as much as to say, (had they the gift of speech) "Risum teneatis Amici?"—see what fools ye are, to labor so hard and so vainly, in efforts to do what we can do better than yourselves! If we consider their tricks and their travesties in any other point of view, we shall commit the same ludicrous blunder that one of our Would Be's of the olden time was said once to have committed at a certain foreign court, "in mistaking a sarcasm for a compliment," to the great amusement of all who had cognizance of the fact, except the poor Americans, of whom he was rather an unlucky sample.