Chapter VI (1)

Trenton—built above the head of navigation to encourage commerce—capital of the State—only wants a castle, a bay, a mountain, a sea, and a volcano, to bear a strong resemblance to the Bay of Naples[32]—supreme court sitting—fat chief justice—used to get asleep on the bench after dinner—gave judgment, I suppose, like Pilate’s wife, from his dreams—reminded me of Justice Bridlegoose deciding by a throw of a die, and of the oracle of the holy bottle[33]—attempted to kiss the chambermaid—boxed my ears till they rung like our theatre-bell—girl had lost one tooth—mem. all the American ladies prudes, and have bad teeth; Anacreon Moore’s opinion on the matter. State house—fine place to see the sturgeons jump up—query, whether sturgeons jump up by an impulse of the tail, or whether they bounce up from the bottom by the elasticity of their noses? Linkum Fidelius of the latter opinion—I too—sturgeon’s nose capital for tennis-balls—learnt that at school—went to a ball—negro wench principal musician! N. B. People of America have no fiddlers but females!—origin of the phrase, “fiddle of your heart”—reasons why men fiddle better than women; expedient of the Amazons, who were expert at the bow; waiter at the city tavern—good story of his—nothing to the purpose—never mind—fill up my book like Carr—make it sell. Saw a democrat get into a stage followed by his dog.[34] N. B. This town remarkable for dogs and democrats—superfine sentiment[35]—good story from Joe Miller—ode to a piggin of butter—pensive meditations on a mouse-hole—make a book as clear as a whistle!

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

I have observed a particular intimacy for these few days past between that dry wag, Will Wizard, and my cousin Pindar. The latter has taken his winter quarters at old Cockloft’s, in the corner room opposite mine, in order to be at hand and overlook the town. They hardly gave themselves time, on Sunday last, to wait for the family toast of “our absent friends,” before they adjourned to Pindar’s chamber. In the course of an hour my cousin’s enormous mandarin inkstand was sent down to be replenished. I began to be seriously alarmed, for I thought if they had exhausted its contents without exhausting their subject, there was no knowing where it would end.

On returning to tea, my cousin Pindar was observed to rub his hands, a sure sign that something tickled his fancy; he, however, maintained as mysterious a countenance as a Seventh Ward politician. As to Will Wizard, he took longer strides than usual, his inflexible phiz had an uncommonly knowing air, and a sagacious wink occasionally betrayed that he had more in his head than he chose to communicate. The whole family (who in truth are much given to _wonder_ at everything) were sadly puzzled to conjecture what their two precious noddles had been bothering about.

In the evening, after I had retreated to my citadel, the elbow-chair, I was surprised by the abrupt entrance of these two worthies. My cousin opened the budget at once: he declared that it was as necessary for a modern poet to have an assistant, as for Don Quixote to have a Sancho—that it was the fashion for poets, nowadays, to write so ineffably obscure, that every line required a page of notes to explain its meaning, and render its “darkness visible”—that a modern poem could no more succeed without notes, than a paper kite could fly without a tail. In a word, Pegasus had become a most mulish animal, and would not budge a foot, unless he lumbered along a cart-load of quotations and explanations, and illustrations at his heels: he had therefore prevailed on Will Wizard to assist him occasionally as annotator and illustrator. As a specimen of their united labors, he handed me the following complimentary ode to that king of the buzzards, Dr. Christopher Costive, informing me that he had plenty more on hand whenever occasion required it. I had been rather surprised lately at the Doctor’s meddling with us, as he was sure of gaining more kicks than coppers in return; but I am told an ass loves to have his muzzle scratched with nettles. On expressing my surprise, Will informed me that it was all a sham battle; that he was very intimate with the Doctor, and could relate a thousand diverting anecdotes concerning him; and that the Doctor, finding we were in want of a butt, had generously volunteered himself as our target. I wish him joy of his bargain.

In the following poem it will be observed that, while my cousin Pindar tunes his pipe on the top of the page, Will Wizard worries away at his thorough bass below. The notes of a modern poem being like the sound of a French horn, bassoon, kettle-drum, and bass viol, in our orchestra, which make such a confounded racket, that they entirely drown the song; and no man, who has not the sublime ear of a connoisseur, can tell what the devil they’re playing.

FLUMMERY.

FROM THE MILL[36] OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.

_Being a Poem with Notes, or rather_ Notes with a Poem;[37] _in the
manner of_

DOCTOR[38] CHRISTOPHER COSTIVE.

“Prick me Bull calf till he roars.”[39]
_Falstaff._

The greatest[40] poet of our day,
From State of Maine to Louisiana;[41]
The hero who did ’sist upon’t,
He wou’dn’t be deputy to Mr. Hunt;[42]
Who rear’d a gallows for each elf, and
Did for _hangman_ his own self stand.[43]
And made folks think it very odd, he
Should turn _Jack Ketch_ to everybody,
The modern mounter of Pegasus,
The clumsy jolter of Jackasses,[44]
Who, now the poet’s dray horse starts on,
Anon, the gibbet hurdle carts on,
Now o’er a poem dozes happy,
And next expertly draws the cap; he
Who cares not though the world should know it
That he’s half hangman, half a poet.[45]
Who gibbeted the knaves so knowing,
That kept Democracy a-going,
Hung his _fac-simile_ famed Toney[46]
Pasquin, the friend of Mr. Honé.
Who drags like snail his filthy slime
Through many a ragged, hobbling rhyme,
Then calls his billingsgate—sarcastic!
His drabbling doggrel—Hudibrastic!
[Good lack, my friends, ’twould make you soon[47] laugh,
To see this jolter-headed moon-calf,
From Hudibras his honors steal
And break Sam Butler on the wheel.][48]
With other things that I might tell ye on
Performed by this rump-fed hellion[49]
—But not o’er long to dwell upon’t,
This man as big as an elephant,[50]
This _sweetest_ witling of the age,[51]
This hero, hangman, critic, sage,[52]
This poet of five hundred pound[53]
Has come to grace our hapless town.
And when he entered, every goose
Began to cackle like the deuce;
The asses brayed to one another—
’Twas plain—the creatures smelt a brother.

NOTES, BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

Footnote 36:

_Mill._] As we are not a little anxious to cultivate the intimacy so
happily commenced between the Doctor and ourselves, we feel bound in
candor to confess the charge made against us, of having borrowed from
him some of the phrases and ideas of our last number; and we justify
ourselves by attributing it to our high regard for his talents: for
what can be a greater proof of friendship, nowadays, than borrowing?
If we were his enemies, we might justify it by the old maxim of
“foiling the devil with his own weapons.” As to the “mill,” which the
Doctor so vociferously claims, honest Pindar acknowledges that he
borrowed the idea from the Doctor’s writings in general, for he never
dipped in them without thinking of our nocturnal music-grinder, who
continually grinds over and over the same sleepy tune of, “O, hard is
my fate.”

Footnote 37:

_Notes with a Poem._] Whatever merit may appear in this Poem, my
friend Cockloft must own that it is entirely owing to his close
adherence to his _big_ prototype, Dr. Caustic. The rhymes are
generally _borrowed_ from the Doctor’s own works, possessing all that
quaintness, cuteness, and clumsiness, for which he is remarkable. As
the lesser thing should always depend upon the greater, we have rather
inverted the usual title of such works, and made the poem minor. We
recommend the Doctor’s mode of _compiling_ a book to all the nums of
the day—as an example, we instance his “Terrible Tractoration,” of
which, as few buy, and still fewer read it (a proof that the town are
not quite such fools as the Doctor would make them), we shall say
little. The book was smothered in notes, like a goose in onions—some
ill-natured cynics have asserted that what little whim the work
contained lay entirely in the notes, which we are sorry to say were
not written by the Doctor; his poem might therefore be said to
resemble the _leg of a stool_, dressed up with _savory sauce_; or, as
the Doctor will understand it better, that famous dish called
_pumpkin-pie_, where, though the _pumpkin_ gives the _name_ to the
dish, yet the great skill of the cook is to hide the twang of it as
much as possible with _spice_ and _sugar_.

Footnote 38:

_Doctor._] The Doctor, we are told, was not bred a physician; nor was
he indebted for his appellation to a gratuitous donation from any
university, as Doctor of Laws—he was humorously so dubbed by his
neighbors in Vermont, on account of having once benevolently physicked
a sick horse—his works bear testimony to his drenching abilities; and
we may justly apply to him an unlucky epigram, written on a brother
quack in physic and poetry:—

“For physic and farces
His equal there scarce is—
His _farces_ are _physic_—
His _physic_ a _farce_ is.”

Footnote 39:

_Prick Bull calf, etc._] We had not the least expectation that our
notice of Doctor Costive, in the last number, would have put him into
such an indecent passion. Bless us, how he has roared! and like
Falstaff not only roared but “ran and roared”—

——“unpack’d his heart with words,
And fell a cursing—like a very drab!
A scullion!”

He has given us a most woful _scolding_ through some eight or nine
columns, and plainly proved that our work was not worth a fig, because
“Salmagundi” had been heretofore given as a title to another
work—Launcelot Langstaff was evidently copied from Isaac Bickerstaff,
because they both ended with _staff_—“Whimwhams” was the same as
“Flimflams”—“Will Wizard” was taken from—the Lord knows where;
_Wintry_ was accidentally misspelled or misprinted _Wintery_, and
“_Weakly_” was borrowed from his own _Weakly_ productions. O, Midas,
Midas, how thine ears do loom through the fog of thy writings. When a
man of the Doctor’s gumption can write nine columns against our work,
and discover no greater faults, we may well be vain—were we to
criticise our own writings, they would stand a much poorer chance. In
spite of the Doctor’s crustiness we still love him in our hearts—he
may scold like an old woman but we know it all arises from that
excessive irritability common to all men who have “written a book,”
and particularly a book of doggerel rhymes. We again assure him of our
perfect good-will toward himself and his most amiable offspring, that
delectable pair of twin brothers, _Terrible Tractoration_ and
_Democracy Unveiled_. May the whole world in general, and posterity in
particular, know the proper distinction between Hudibrastic and
Doggerel, and acquit the Doctor from the imputation meanly leveled
against him by sundry nincoms of imitating Hudibras. We are sorry that
he should ever have been thought capable of descending to be a
copyist, and we challenge the whole world to deny that the Doctor’s
verse is doggerel, genuine, broken-winded, rickety doggerel, whatever
his enemies may insist to the contrary. The Doctor’s waggery, however,
like that of many other double-headed wits, seems often to have been
taken by the wrong end. On the first appearance of his _Terrible
Tractoration_, the critics were absolutely at a loss, such was the
delicacy of his wit, to say whether he was the champion or opponent of
Perkinism. Thus the _Critical Review_ for 1803: “His real object
cannot always be ascertained—we _think_ him, however, the friend of
the Tractors.” Either the Doctor or the critic must have been a
dunderhead—we charitably suppose the critic. The Doctor afterward,
like “John-a-Gudgeon” in the _Pleader’s Guide_, explained, and his
explanation proved so perfectly satisfactory that there were very few
of the reviewers but could tell, or at least _guess_ at his object.
The fact was, the Doctor, good inoffensive soul, did not mean to
attack anything—except common sense. We recommend this work as a
soporific specimen of the Doctor’s skill in _balderdash_.

Footnote 40:

_Greatest poet._] _Great_ is sometimes a positive, sometimes a
figurative term—as we say a _great man_, a _great mountain_, or when
speaking of the Doctor, _great man mountain_—having no allusion here
to the mountain which brought forth a mouse. When, however, we speak
of the Doctor as a _great_ man or great poet, we mean to be understood
that he is some six feet six inches high—three feet across the
shoulders, nine round the paunch—that he weighs about half a ton, and
is withal most clumsily hung together.

Footnote 41:

_Louisiana._] Though we plume ourselves on adhering closely to the
Doctor’s rhymes, yet we have taken the liberty of differing a little
in the pronunciation of this word—the Doctor gives it in the true
eastern dialect, Lousy-anee—but to give it _à la Costive_—

“Which late, ’tis said, in weather rainy,
Was melted in Louisiana.”

Again: for when the Doctor gets hold of a good rhyme, he is a “woundy”
toad for harping on it.

“But please his highness ship, I won’t
Be deputy to Mr. Hunt:
No—were it offered ’twould be vain, he
Won’t catch me in Louisiana (or Lousy-anee”).

These two latter lines are truly as musical as marrowbones and
cleavers, and remind us of that sweet couplet, by the Doctor’s rival,
the inimitable Searson

“From this seat I pass’d to Alexandria,
And am pleased through rural scenes to wander.”
Sear. _Mount Ver._

If our reader wishes for more specimens of the Doctor’s knack at
rhyming, we’ll give him the oft-repeated tags of “rogues and
demagogues,” “brewing and ruin,” “wildering and children,” “women and
common,” “trimming and women,” “well-knows and fellows,” “comparison
and harass’d-em;” together with an occasional mixture of those attic
eastern jingles of “dandy and handy” and “sugar candy.” The Doctor and
Searson’s poetic contest is similar to one that whilom took place
between two honest tars (we beg the gentle Joe Miller’s pardon for
_borrowing_ an anecdote); one gave as _prize couplet_:—

“As she slips she slides along,
A faithful friend is hard to find.”

but the other _rhymester_ beat him all hollow by singing out

“My quart pot holds a gallon,
By zounds.”

Footnote 42:

_Deputy to Mr. Hunt._] Mr. Hunt was a _little_ man and a young man;
the Doctor, although of the same age, feeling the _immensity_ of his
qualifications, refuses to second such a governor, urging his _size_,
and like Billy Bugby, alleging that what he wanted in years he made up
in _bulk_; and if he lacked in brains, he atoned for all in _garbage_.

Footnote 43:

_Did for hangman, etc._] How the Doctor ever came to stumble on this
unhappy idea, we are at a loss to imagine—it is an odd “whimwham” for
a fellow to dub himself with the humorous epithet of _hangman_. “We
would not have his enemies say so.” Whether the Doctor has a _hanging
look_ or no, we leave others to determine. We are certain he is in no
danger of the gallows himself; but we warn him to take care how he
visits Connecticut—he may chance to be burnt for a witch. We give the
Doctor’s own claim to his _Tyburn title_.

“Now since ye are a ruffian crew,
As honest Jack Ketch ever knew;
No threats nor growling shall prohibit
My hanging you on satire’s gibbet.” _Vide_ Costive.

Footnote 44:

_This clumsy jolter of jackasses._] As this line partakes of the true
Costive obscurity, we beg leave to explain. There is no intention of
calling the Doctor a jackass, we only mean that he makes an ass of
Pegasus, and even when on poor Pegasus (so degraded) he is but a
miserable rider. His trotting, pacing, nigglety-nagglety lines, put us
often in mind of that pious but quaint expression about the “devil
riding rough shod over a soul.”

Footnote 45:

_Half a poet._] O, fie! friend Cockloft, this savors of sheer envy.
Were there any doubts of the Doctor’s being a whole poet—aye, and a
_big_ poet, the following verse would set them at rest. It shows that
he is a complete jockey on Pegasus; and when the poor nag won’t pace,
he’ll cudgel him as soundly as he does his own brains:—

“Yes, we were ’raptured when he said
We’re all republican, all fed-
Ral fellow-citizens, Americans,
And hoped we’d done with faction’s hurricanes!”—_Costive._

Is this poetic frenzy (alias idiotism), or is it turgid stupidity?
Truly it is as smooth as a pine-log causeway; it confirms the Doctor’s
right to his _sir-name_, and can only be matched by a stave from the
Doctor’s contemporary bard and rival _rhymester_, Searson—videlicet:—

“From house to house soon took my departure,
And to the garden look’d for sweet nature.
The fishing very great at Mount Vernon,
When there with other scenes I look’d upon.
This pleasing seat hath its prospects so high,
That one would think ’twas for astronomy,
’Twould answer for an observatory.”

The reader will perceive the similarity in taste, style, and ear of
these rival poets. I have their works bound up together, and
Minshull’s into the bargain. It shall go hard but they shall all
descend the gutter of immortality together.

Footnote 46:

_His fac-simile, famed Toney._] The Doctor’s abusing poor Toney
Pasquin, brought forcibly to our recollection the vulgar cant saying
about the pot and the kettle. Perhaps no two of the _great_ poets of
the day are more alike, in most particulars, than Doctor Costive and
honest Toney. The Doctor is a true poetic blackguard—and so is Toney.
The Doctor is an adept in the Billingsgate vocabulary—so is Toney. The
Doctor has bespattered many a poor devil who never offended him—so has
Toney. The Doctor has written a book—so has Toney. It may be said of
each of them—

“We will not rake the dunghill for his crimes,
Who knows the man will never read his rhymes.”

The only particular in which they disagree is, that Toney has
occasionally been convicted of saying a good thing—the gentle
stupidity of the Doctor being entirely innocent of anything of the
kind.

“Oh, here’s another pumpion, the cramm’d son of a starved usurer,
Cacafogo. Both their brains buttered cannot make two spoonsful.”—_Rule
a Wife._

Footnote 47:

_Soon._] This word is entirely unnecessary to the sense, and is
dragged in for no other purpose whatever but to eke out the line, in
humble _imitation_ of a dull, but honest expedient, frequently made
use of by the illustrious Searson, and his great rival, Doctor
Costive.

Footnote 48:

_And break, etc._] It has for some time been a trick with many a
sleepy scribbler, beside the Doctor, though now it has grown rather
notorious, to break their crabbed lines with a “fist or stick,” or a
crowbar, and then term their _chopped hay_ Hudibrastic—thus is poetry
daily put on the rack; and thus is poor Butler crucified every hour.

Footnote 49:

_Rump-fed hellion._] Lest the Doctor should here again accuse us of
_borrowing_—a thing, by the by, we strongly suspect him of, as we
think we can discover that many of his thoughts, and certainly some of
his rhymes, are _borrowed_ from the immortal Searson and the
inimitable Minshull—we acknowledge that we are indebted for this line
to Shakespeare. Whether the term _rump-fed_ applies to the Doctor or
not, we cannot exactly tell; but if we were not afraid of swelling our
notes, we would, following the example of the Doctor in his _Democracy
Unveiled_, give our readers an account of the famous _Rump_
Parliament—and truly ’twould be as much in point as most of the notes
in that celebrated work.

_Hellion._ “A deputy scullion employed in regions below ‘to cook up
the broth.’”—Link. Fid. The Doctor, good man, has employed himself,
while on earth, as far as his _weakly_ powers would go, in stewing up
many a woful kettle of fish.

“Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

Shakespeare must certainly have had the Doctor’s weekly mess of
_bubble_ and _squeak_ in view, when he wrote the above.

Footnote 50:

_As big as an elephant._] There is more truth than poetry in this
comparison. The following curious anecdote was told me by the Doctor
himself, when I breakfasted with him the other morning: The elephant
which travelled lately through our country, was shown in New England;
two simple country girls, desirous of seeing what kind of a beast it
was, applied for admittance. On entering the room, the Doctor, who was
stooping to tie his shoe-string with his back toward them, was for a
moment taken for the elephant! They declared it was a clumsy
creature—“they could not make head nor tail of it.” No wonder, poor
things, the critics were as much puzzled themselves, as we have
already shown.

Footnote 51:

_Sweetest witling._] A poetic license, the Doctor certainly being none
of the sweetest of personages. Many a fair flower, however, springs
out of a dunghill—and the Doctor is not the first poet who has written
a _sweet_ song in “marvelous dirty linen.”

Footnote 52:

_This hero, hangman, etc._]

“All hushed in mute attention sit,
To hear this critic, poet, wit,
Philosopher, all, all at once,
And to complete them, all this DUNCE.”
_Lloyd._

Footnote 53:

_Five hundred pound._] _i. e._ five hundred pounds weight; or in true
avoirdupois, 4 cwt. 1 qu. 24 lbs.

GENERAL REMARK.

We have endeavored to copy the Doctor’s style and manner as correctly as possible throughout this charming poem; the _rhymes_ are chiefly “filched” from his own _labors_, and jingle as harmoniously as sleigh bells—like him, we have sometimes risen and sometimes descended, with all his leaden profundity. Some poets sip in the Heliconian stream, others dabble in it. The Doctor exceeds them all—he has a true poetic DIVING-BELL—plunges boldly to the bottom, and there drabbles in the mud like a flounder. In the _gallows_ part of his poem, the Doctor may truly be said to _rise_; and in our touch on the Helicon, we have almost equaled those profound sinkings of his genius, where the Doctor even descends _below himself_. We conclude with _borrowing_ a speech from old Shakespeare—“Give me thy hand,” Doctor, “I am sorry I beat thee; but while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head.”

NOTICE.

While in a “state militant,” waging war with folly and stupidity, and assailed on all sides by a combination of nincoms and numsculls, we are gratified to find that our careless effusions have received the approbation of men of wit and genius. We have expressed heretofore our contempt for the applause of _the million_, but we confess ourselves ambitious of the praises of _the few_; we have read, therefore, with infinite self-congratulation the encomiums passed on our productions by the learned and liberal editor of the “People’s Friend.” The attacks of that _billingsgate droll_, Dr. Costive, and his whole _North River fraternity_, could not give us greater delight. We also publish with pride the following Card from the authors of “The Echo,”[54] a work which we have commended to a conspicuous post in our library, and we do hereby shake its authors by the hand as a set of right merry wags, choice spirits, and, what we think better than all, genuine humorists.

CARD.

“The authors of THE ECHO send a copy of it to the writers of SALMAGUNDI, which they request them to accept, as a mark of the pleasure they have received from their Cervantic effusions.”

Now we are in the humor of card writing, we would acknowledge the reception of several effusions in prose and verse, which, though they do great credit to the writers, and would doubtless be both pleasing and instructive to the public, yet do not come exactly within the intention of our work; the authors, therefore, will excuse our not publishing them.

We have likewise received a note written in a French hand, but in villainous bad English. Will Wizard has been at much pains to decipher it, but in vain; it is as unintelligible as a Herculanean manuscript. He has discovered, however, that it is a vindication of dancing, together with a long eulogy on the _pas de chat_.

As a considerable part of this paper is taken up with a stupid subject, namely; the Doctor, and we do not wish that our readers should pay for “flummery” merely, we have directed our publisher to give them eight pages extra; this will account for the unusual size of the present number. We confess we _borrowed_ this idea, among many others, from the Doctor, who lately finding that his readers were dissatisfied with the _contents_ of his “_weekly_” paper, endeavored to put them in good humor by doubling the _bulk_; this he waggishly enough terms _doubling the dose_—O, the droll dog!

NO. V.—SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1807.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

The following letter from my friend Mustapha appears to have been written some time subsequent to the one already published. Were I to judge from its contents, I should suppose it was suggested by the splendid review of the twenty-fifth of last November, when a pair of colors were presented at the City Hall, to the regiments of artillery; and when a huge dinner was devoured by our corporation, in the honorable remembrance of the evacuation of this city. I am happy to find that the laudable spirit of military emulation which prevails in our city has attracted the attention of a stranger of Mustapha’s sagacity; by military emulation I mean that spirited rivalry in the size of a hat, the length of a feather, and the gingerbread finery of a sword-belt.

LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, TO ABDALLAH EB’N AL RAHAB,
SURNAMED THE SNORER, MILITARY SENTINEL AT THE GATE OF HIS HIGHNESS’
PALACE.

Thou hast heard, O Abdallah, of the great magician Muley Fuz, who could change a blooming land blessed with all the elysian charms of hill and dale, of glade and grove, of fruit and flower, into a desert, frightful, solitary, and forlorn; who, with the wave of his wand could transform even the disciples of Mahomet into grinning apes and chattering monkeys. Surely, thought I to myself this morning, the dreadful Muley has been exercising his infernal enchantments on these unhappy infidels. Listen, O Abdallah, and wonder! Last night I committed myself to tranquil slumber, encompassed with all the monotonous tokens of peace, and this morning I awoke enveloped in the noise, the bustle, the clangor, and the shouts of war. Everything was changed, as if by magic. An immense army had sprung up, like mushrooms, in a night, and all the cobblers, tailors, and tinkers of the city had mounted the nodding plume; had become, in the twinkling of an eye, helmeted heroes and war-worn veterans.

Alarmed at the beating of drums, the braying of trumpets, and the shouting of the multitude, I dressed myself in haste, sallied forth, and followed a prodigious crowd of people to a place called the Battery. This is so denominated, I am told, from having once been defended with formidable _wooden_ bulwarks, which in the course of a hard winter were _thriftily_ pulled to pieces by an _economic_ corporation, to be distributed for fire-wood among the poor; this was done at the hint of a cunning old engineer, who assured them it was the only way in which their fortifications would ever be able to keep up a warm fire. ECONOMY, my friend, is the watch-word of this nation; I have been studying for a month past to divine its meaning, but truly am as much perplexed as ever. It is a kind of national starvation; an experiment how many comforts and necessaries the body politic can be deprived of before it perishes. It has already arrived to a lamentable degree of debility, and promises to share the fate of the Arabian philosopher, who proved that he could live without food, but unfortunately died just as he had brought his experiment to perfection.

On arriving at the Battery, I found an immense army of SIX HUNDRED MEN, drawn up in a true Mussulman crescent. At first I supposed this was in compliment to myself, but my interpreter informed me that it was done merely for want of room—the corporation not being able to afford them sufficient to display in a straight line. As I expected a display of some grand evolutions and military maneuvers, I determined to remain a tranquil spectator, in hopes that I might possibly collect some hints which might be of service to His Highness.

This great body of men, I perceived, was under the command of a small _bashaw_, in yellow and gold, with white nodding plumes, and most formidable whiskers; which, contrary to the Tripolitan fashion, were in the neighborhood of his ears instead of his nose. He had two attendants called aid-de-camps (or _tails_), being similar to a bashaw with two tails. The bashaw, though commander-in-chief, seemed to have little more to do than myself; he was a spectator within the lines, and I without: he was clear of the rabble, and I was encompassed by them; this was the only difference between us, except that he had the best opportunity of showing his clothes. I waited an hour or two with exemplary patience, expecting to see some grand military evolutions or a sham battle exhibited; but no such thing took place; the men stood stock still, supporting their arms, groaning under the fatigues of war, and now and then sending out a foraging party to levy contributions of beer and a favorite beverage which they denominated grog. As I perceived the crowd very active in examining the line, from one extreme to the other, and as I could see no other purpose for which these sunshine warriors should be exposed so long to the merciless attacks of the wind and weather, I of course concluded that this must be _the review_.

In about two hours the army was put in motion, and marched through some narrow streets—there the economic corporation had carefully provided a soft carpet of mud—to a magnificent castle of painted brick, decorated with grand pillars of pine boards. By the ardor which brightened in each countenance, I soon perceived that this castle was to undergo a vigorous attack. As the ordnance of the castle was perfectly silent, and as they had nothing but a straight street to advance through, they made their approaches with great courage and admirable regularity, until within about a hundred feet of the castle a pump opposed a formidable obstacle in their way, and put the whole army to a nonplus. The circumstance was sudden and unlooked for: the commanding officer ran over all the military tactics with which his head was crammed, but none offered any expedient for the present awful emergency. The pump maintained its post, and so did the commander; there was no knowing which was most at a stand. The commanding officer ordered his men to wheel and take it in flank; the army accordingly wheeled and came full butt against it in the rear, exactly as they were before, “Wheel to the left!” cried the officer; they did so, and again as before the inveterate pump intercepted their progress. “Right about face!” cried the officer; the men obeyed, but bungled—they _faced back to back_. Upon this the bashaw with two tails, with great coolness, undauntedly ordered his men to push right forward, pell-mell, pump or no pump; they gallantly obeyed; after unheard-of acts of bravery the pump was carried, without the loss of a man, and the army firmly intrenched itself under the walls of the castle. The bashaw had then a council of war with his officers; the most vigorous measures were resolved on. An advanced guard of musicians were ordered to attack the castle without mercy. Then the whole band opened a most tremendous battery of drums, fifes, tambourines, and trumpets, and kept up a thundering assault, as if the castle like the walls of Jericho, spoken of in the Jewish Chronicles, would tumble down at the blowing of rams’ horns. After some time a parley ensued. The grand bashaw of the city appeared on the battlements of the castle, and as far as I could understand from circumstances, dared the little bashaw of two tails to single combat—this thou knowest was in the style of ancient chivalry—the little bashaw dismounted with great intrepidity, and ascended the battlements of the castle, where the great bashaw waited to receive him, attended by numerous dignitaries and worthies of his court, one of whom bore the splendid banners of the castle. The battle was carried on entirely by words, according to the universal custom of this country, of which I shall speak to thee more fully hereafter. The grand bashaw made a furious attack in a speech of considerable length; the little bashaw, by no means appalled, retorted with great spirit. The grand bashaw attempted to rip him up with an argument, or stun him with a solid fact; but the little bashaw parried them both with admirable adroitness, and run him clean through and through with a syllogism. The grand bashaw was overthrown, the banners of the castle yielded up to the little bashaw, and the castle surrendered after a vigorous defense of three hours, during which the besiegers suffered great extremity from muddy streets and a drizzling atmosphere.

On returning to dinner I soon discovered that as usual I had been indulging in a great mistake. The matter was all clearly explained to me by a fellow-lodger, who on ordinary occasions moves in the humble character of a tailor, but in the present instance figured in a high military station, denominated _corporal_. He informed me that what I had mistaken for a castle was the splendid palace of the municipality, and that the supposed attack was nothing more than the delivery of a flag given by the authorities, to the army, for its magnanimous defense of the town for upward of twenty years past, that is, ever since the last war! O my friend, surely everything in this country is on a great scale!—The conversation insensibly turned upon the military establishment of the nation; and I do assure thee that my friend, the tailor, though being, according to a national proverb, but the ninth part of a man, yet acquitted himself on military concerns as ably as the grand bashaw of the empire himself. He observed that their rulers had decided that wars were very useless and expensive, and ill befitting an economic, philosophic nation; they had therefore made up their minds never to have any wars, and consequently there was no need of soldiers or military discipline. As, however, it was thought highly ornamental to a city to have a number of men dressed in fine clothes and _feathers_, strutting about the streets on a holiday,—and as the women and children were particularly fond of such _raree shows_, it was ordered that the tailors of the different cities throughout the empire should, forthwith, go to work and cut out and manufacture soldiers as fast as their shears and needles would permit.

These soldiers have no pecuniary pay; and their only recompense for the immense services which they render their country, in their voluntary parades, is the plunder of smiles, and winks, and nods which they extort from the ladies. As they have no opportunity, like the vagrant Arabs, of making inroads on their neighbors: and as it is necessary to keep up their military spirit, the town is therefore now and then, but particularly on two days of the year, given up to their ravages. The arrangements are contrived with admirable address, so that every officer, from the bashaw down to the drum-major, the chief of the eunuchs, or musicians, shall have his share of that invaluable booty, the admiration of the fair. As to the soldiers, poor animals, they, like the privates in all great armies, have to bear the brunt of danger and fatigue, while their officers receive all the glory and reward. The narrative of a parade day will exemplify this more clearly.

The chief bashaw, in the plenitude of his authority, orders a grand review of the whole army at two o’clock. The bashaw with two tails, that he may have an opportunity of vaporing about, as greatest man on the field, orders the army to assemble at twelve. The kiay, or colonel, as he is called, that is, commander of one hundred and twenty men, orders his regiment or tribe to collect one mile at least from the place of parade at eleven. Each captain, or fag-rag, as we term them, commands his squad to meet at ten at least half a mile from the regimental parade; and to close all, the chief of the eunuchs orders his infernal concert of fifes, trumpets, cymbals, and kettle-drums to assemble at ten!—from that moment the city receives no quarter. All is noise, hooting, hubbub, and combustion. Every window, door, crack, and loophole, from the garret to the cellar, is crowded with the fascinating fair of all ages and of all complexions. The mistress smiles through the windows of the drawing-room; the chubby chambermaid lolls out of the attic casement, and a host of sooty wenches roll their white eyes and grin and chatter from the cellar door. Every nymph seems anxious to yield voluntarily that tribute which the heroes of their country demand. First struts the chief eunuch, or drum-major, at the head of his sable band, magnificently arrayed in tarnished scarlet. Alexander himself could not have spurned the earth more superbly. A host of ragged boys shout in his train, and inflate the bosom of the warrior with tenfold self-complacency. After he has rattled his kettle-drums through the town, and swelled and swaggered like a turkey-cock before all the dingy Floras, and Dianas, and Junos, and Didos of his acquaintance, he repairs to his place of destination loaded with a rich booty of smiles and approbation. Next comes the FAG-RAG, or captain, at the head of his mighty band, consisting of one lieutenant, one ensign, or mute, four sergeants, four corporals, one drummer, one fifer, and if he has any privates so much the better for himself. In marching to the regimental parade, he is sure to paddle through the street or lane which is honored with the residence of his mistress or intended, whom he resolutely lays under a heavy contribution. Truly it is delectable to behold these heroes, as they march, cast side glances at the upper windows; to collect the smiles, the nods, and the winks, which the enraptured fair ones lavish profusely on the magnanimous defenders of their country.

The fag-rags having conducted their squads to their respective regiments, then comes the turn of the colonel, a bashaw with no tails, for all eyes are now directed to him; and the fag-rags, and the eunuchs, and the kettle-drummers, having had their hour of notoriety, are confounded and lost in the military crowd. The colonel sets his whole regiment in motion; and mounted on a mettlesome charger, frisks and fidgets, and capers, and plunges in front, to the great entertainment of the multitude, and the great hazard of himself and his neighbors. Having displayed himself, his trappings, his horse, and his horsemanship, he at length arrives at the place of general rendezvous, blessed with the universal admiration of his countrywomen. I should perhaps mention a squadron of hardy veterans, most of whom have seen a deal of service during the nineteen or twenty years of their experience, and who, most gorgeously equipped in tight green jackets and breeches, trot and amble, and gallop and scamper like little devils through every street and nook and corner and poke-hole of the city, to the great dread of all old people, and sage matrons with young children. This is truly sublime! this is what I call making a mountain out of a molehill. O, my friend, on what a great scale is everything done in this country. It is in the style of the wandering Arabs of the desert _El-tih_. Is a village to be attacked, or a hamlet to be plundered, the whole desert, for weeks beforehand, is in a buzz: such marching and counter-marching, ere they can concentrate their ragged forces! and the consequence is, that before they can bring their troops into action, the whole enterprise is blown.

The army being all happily collected on the Battery, though, perhaps, two hours after the time appointed, it is now the turn of the bashaw with two tails to distinguish himself. Ambition, my friend, is implanted alike in every heart, it pervades each bosom, from the bashaw to the drum-major. This is a sage truism, and I trust, therefore, it will not be disputed. The bashaw, fired with that thirst for glory, inseparable from the noble mind, is anxious to reap a full share of the laurels of the day and bear off his portion of female plunder. The drums beat, the fifes whistle, the standards wave proudly in the air. The signal is given! thunder roars the cannon! away goes the bashaw, and away go the tails! The review finished, evolutions and military maneuvers are generally dispensed with for three excellent reasons: first, because the army knows very little about them; second, because, as the country has determined to remain always at peace, there is no necessity for them to know anything about them; and third, as it is growing late, the bashaw must dispatch, or it will be too dark for him to get his quota of the plunder. He, of course, orders the whole army to march; and now, my friend, now comes the tug of war, now is the city completely sacked. Open fly the Battery gates, forth sallies the bashaw with his two tails, surrounded by a shouting body-guard of boys and negroes! then pour forth his legions, potent as the pismires of the desert! the customary salutations of the country commence—these tokens of joy and admiration which so much annoyed me on first landing; the air is darkened with old hats, shoes, and dead cats; they fly in showers like the arrows of the Parthians. The soldiers, no ways disheartened, like the intrepid followers of Leonidas, march gallantly under their shade. On they push, splash, dash, mud or no mud. Down one lane, up another; the martial music resounds through every street; the fair ones throng to their windows; the soldiers look every way but straight forward. “Carry arms!” cries the bashaw—“tan-ta ra-ra,” brays the trumpet—“rub-a-dub,” roars the drum—“hurraw,” shout the ragamuffins. The bashaw smiles with exultation—every fag-rag feels himself a hero—“none but the brave deserves the fair!” Head of the immortal Amrou, on what a great scale is everything in this country!

Ay, but you’ll say, is not this unfair that the officers should share all the sports while the privates undergo all the fatigue? truly, my friend, I indulged the same idea, and pitied from my heart the poor fellows who had to drabble through the mud and the mire, toiling under ponderous cocked hats, which seemed as unwieldy and cumbrous as the shell which the snail lumbers along on his back. I soon found out, however, that they have their quantum of notoriety. As soon as the army is dismissed, the city swarms with little scouting parties, who fire off their guns at every corner, to the great delight of all the women and children in their vicinity; and woe unto any dog, or pig, or hog, that falls in the way of these magnanimous warriors; they are shown no quarter. Every gentle swain repairs to pass the evening at the feet of his dulcinea, to play, “the soldier tired of war’s alarms,” and to captivate her with the glare of his regimentals; excepting some ambitious heroes who strut to the theatre, flame away in the front boxes, and hector every old apple-woman in the lobbies.

Such, my friend, is the gigantic genius of this nation, and its faculty for swelling up nothings into importance. Our bashaw of Tripoli will review his troops of some thousands, by an early hour in the morning. Here a review of six hundred men is made the mighty work of a day! with us a bashaw of two tails is never appointed to a command of less than ten thousand men; but here we behold every grade, from the bashaw down to the drum-major, in a force of less than one-tenth of the number. By the beard of Mahomet! but everything here is indeed on a great scale.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

I was not a little surprised the other morning at a request from Will Wizard that I would accompany him that evening to Mrs. ——’s ball. The request was simple enough in itself, it was only singular as coming from Will; of all my acquaintance, Wizard is the least calculated and disposed for the society of ladies—not that he dislikes their company; on the contrary, like every man of pith and marrow, he is a professed admirer of the sex; and had he been born a poet, would undoubtedly have bespattered and berhymed some hard-named goddess, until she became as famous as Petrarch’s Laura, or Waller’s Sacharissa; but Will is such a confounded bungler at a bow, has so many odd bachelor habits, and finds it so troublesome to be gallant, that he generally prefers smoking his cigar and telling his stories among cronies of his own gender—and thundering long stories they are, let me tell you; set Will once a-going about China or Crim Tartary, or the Hottentots, and Heaven help the poor victim who has to endure his prolixity; he might better be tied to the tail of a jack-o’-lantern. In one word—Will talks like a traveller. Being well acquainted with his character, I was the more alarmed at his inclination to visit a party; since he has often assured me, that he considered it as equivalent to being stuck up for three hours in a steam engine. I even wondered how he had received an invitation; this he soon accounted for. It seems Will, on his last arrival from Canton, had made a present of a case of tea to a lady for whom he had once entertained a sneaking kindness when at grammar school; and she in return had invited him to come and drink some of it; a cheap way enough of paying off little obligations. I readily acceded to Will’s proposition, expecting much entertainment from his eccentric remarks; and as he has been absent some few years, I anticipated his surprise at the splendor and elegance of a modern rout.

On calling for Will in the evening, I found him full dressed, waiting for me. I contemplated him with absolute dismay. As he still retained a spark of regard for the lady who once reigned in his affections, he had been at unusual pains in decorating his person, and broke upon my sight arrayed in the true style that prevailed among our beaux some years ago. His hair was turned up and tufted at the top, frizzled out at the ears, a profusion of powder puffed over the whole, and a long plaited club swung gracefully from shoulder to shoulder, describing a pleasing semicircle of powder and pomatum. His claret-colored coat was decorated with a profusion of gilt buttons, and reached to his calves. His white cassimere small clothes were so tight that he seemed to have grown up in them; and his ponderous legs, which are the thickest part of his body, were beautifully clothed in sky-blue silk stockings, once considered so becoming. But above all, he prided himself upon his waistcoat of China silk, which might almost have served a good housewife for a shortgown; and he boasted that the roses and tulips upon it were the work of _Nang-Fou_, daughter of the great _Chin-Chin-Fou_, who had fallen in love with the graces of his person, and sent it to him as a parting present; he assured me she was a remarkable beauty, with sweet obliquity of eyes, and a foot no larger than the thumb of an alderman; he then dilated most copiously on his silver-sprigged dickey, which he assured me was quite the rage among the dashing young mandarins of Canton.

I hold it an ill-natured office to put any man out of conceit with himself; so, though I would willingly have made a little alteration in my friend Wizard’s picturesque costume, yet I politely complimented him on his rakish appearance.

On entering the room I kept a good look-out on Will, expecting to see him exhibit signs of surprise; but he is one of those knowing fellows who are never surprised at anything, or at least will never acknowledge it. He took his stand in the middle of the floor, playing with his great steel watch-chain; and looking round on the company, the furniture, and the pictures, with the air of a man “who has seen d—d finer things in his time;” and to my utter confusion and dismay, I saw him coolly pull out his villainous old japanned tobacco-box, ornamented with a bottle, a pipe, and a scurvy motto, and help himself to a quid in face of all the company.

I knew it was all in vain to find fault with a fellow of Will’s Socratic turn, who is never to be put out of humor with himself; so, after he had given his box its prescriptive rap and returned it to his pocket, I drew him into a corner where we might observe the company without being prominent objects ourselves.

“And pray who is that stylish figure,” said Will, “who blazes away in red, like a volcano, and who seems wrapped in flames like a fiery dragon?” “That,” cried I, “is Miss Laurella Dashaway—she is the highest flash of the ton—has much whim and more eccentricity, and has reduced many an unhappy gentleman to stupidity by her charms; you see she holds out the red flag in token of ‘no quarter.’” “Then keep me safe out of the sphere of her attractions,” cried Will, “I would not e’en come in contact with her train, lest it should scorch me like the tail of a comet. But who, I beg of you, is that amiable youth who is handing a young lady, and at the same time contemplating his sweet person in a mirror as he passes?” “His name,” said I, “is Billy Dimple; he is a universal smiler, and would travel from Dan to Beersheba and smile on everybody as he passed. Dimple is a slave to the ladies—a hero at tea-parties, and is famous at the _pirouette_ and the pigeon-wing; a fiddle-stick is his idol, and a dance his elysium.” “A very pretty young gentleman, truly,” cried Wizard, “he reminds me of a contemporary beau at Hayti. You must know that the magnanimous Dessalines gave a great ball to his court one fine sultry summer’s evening; Dessy and me were great cronies—hand and glove—one of the most condescending great men I ever knew. Such a display of black and yellow beauties! such a show of Madras handkerchiefs, red beads, cocks’ tails and peacocks’ feathers!—it was, as here, who should wear the highest top-knot, drag the longest tails, or exhibit the greatest variety of combs, colors, and gewgaws. In the middle of the rout, when all was buzz, slip-slop, crack, and perfume, who should enter but Tucky Squash! The yellow beauties blushed blue, and the black ones blushed as red as they could, with pleasure; and there was a universal agitation of fans; every eye brightened and whitened to see Tucky; for he was the pride of the court, the pink of courtesy, the mirror of fashion, the adoration of all the sable fair ones of Hayti. Such breadth of nose, such exuberance of lip! his shins had the true cucumber curve; his face in dancing shone like a kettle; and provided you kept to windward of him in summer, I do not know a sweeter youth in all Hayti than Tucky Squash. When he laughed, there appeared from ear to ear a chevaux-de-frise of teeth, that rivaled the shark’s in whiteness; he could whistle like a northwester; play on a three-stringed fiddle like Apollo; and as to dancing no Long Island negro could shuffle you ‘double trouble,’ ‘hoe corn and dig potatoes’ more scientifically—in short, he was a second Lothario. And the dusky nymphs of Hayti, one and all, declared him a perpetual Adonis. Tucky walked about, whistling to himself, without regarding anybody; and his _nonchalance_ was irresistible.”