Chapter VI (3)

While the fury of the battle rages in the metropolis, every little town and village has a distinct broil, growing like excrescences out of the grand national altercation, or rather agitating within it, like those complicated pieces of mechanism where there is a “wheel within a wheel.”

But in nothing is the verbose nature of this government more evident than in its grand national divan, or Congress, where the laws are framed; this is a blustering, windy assembly, where everything is carried by noise, tumult, and debate; for thou must know, that the members of this assembly do not meet together to find wisdom in the multitude of counselors, but to wrangle, call each other hard names, and hear themselves talk. When the Congress opens, the bashaw first sends them a long message, _i. e._, a huge mass of words—_vox et præterea nihil_, all meaning nothing; because it only tells them what they perfectly know already. Then the whole assembly are thrown into a ferment, and have a long talk about the quantity of words that are to be returned in answer to this message; and here arise many disputes about the correction and alteration of “if so be’s” and “how so ever’s.” A month, perhaps, is spent in thus determining the precise number of words the answer shall contain; and then another, most probably, in concluding whether it shall be carried to the bashaw on foot, on horseback, or in coaches. Having settled this weighty matter, they next fall to work upon the message itself, and hold as much chattering over it as so many magpies over an addled egg. This done, they divide the message into small portions, and deliver them into the hands of little juntoes of talkers, called committees; these juntoes have each a world of talking about their respective paragraphs, and return the results to the grand divan, which forthwith falls to and retalks the matter over more earnestly than ever. Now, after all, it is an even chance that the subject of this prodigious arguing, quarreling, and talking is an affair of no importance, and ends entirely in smoke. May it not then be said, the whole nation have been talking to no purpose? The people, in fact, seem to be somewhat conscious of this propensity to talk, by which they are characterized, and have a favorite proverb on the subject, viz., “all talk and no cider;” this is particularly applied when their Congress, or assembly of all the sage chatterers of the nation, have chattered through a whole session, in a time of great peril and momentous event, and have done nothing but exhibit the length of their tongues and the emptiness of their heads. This has been the case more than once, my friend; and to let thee into a secret, I have been told in confidence, that there have been absolutely several old women smuggled into Congress from different parts of the empire; who, having once got on the breeches, as thou mayest well imagine, have taken the lead in debate, and overwhelmed the whole assembly with their garrulity; for my part, as times go, I do not see why old women should not be as eligible to public councils as old men who possess their dispositions; they certainly are eminently possessed of the qualifications requisite to govern in a logocracy.

Nothing, as I have repeatedly insisted, can be done in this country without talking; but they take so long to talk over a measure, that by the time they have determined upon adopting it, the period has elapsed which was proper for carrying it into effect. Unhappy nation! thus torn to pieces by intestine talks! never, I fear, will it be restored to tranquillity and silence. Words are but breath; breath is but air; and air put into motion is nothing but wind. This vast empire, therefore, may be compared to nothing more or less than a mighty windmill, and the orators, and the chatterers, and the slang-whangers, are the breezes that put it in motion; unluckily, however, they are apt to blow different ways, and their blasts counteracting each other—the mill is perplexed, the wheels stand still, the grist is unground, and the miller and his family starved.

Everything partakes of the windy nature of the government. In case of any domestic grievance, or an insult from a foreign foe, the people are all in a buzz; town-meetings are immediately held where the quidnuncs of the city repair, each like an Atlas, with the cares of the whole nation upon his shoulders, each resolutely bent upon saving his country, and each swelling and strutting like a turkey-cock; puffed up with words, and wind, and nonsense. After bustling, and buzzing, and bawling for some time, and after each man has shown himself to be indubitably the greatest personage in the meeting, they pass a string of resolutions, _i. e._ words, which were previously prepared for the purpose; these resolutions are whimsically denominated the sense of the meeting, and are sent off for the instruction of the reigning bashaw, who receives them graciously, puts them into his red breeches pocket, forgets to read them—and so the matter ends.

As to his highness, the present bashaw, who is at the very top of the logocracy, never was a dignitary better qualified for his station. He is a man of superlative ventosity, and comparable to nothing but a huge bladder of wind. He talks of vanquishing all opposition by the force of reason and philosophy: throws his gauntlet at all the notions of the earth, and defies them to meet him—on the field of argument! Is the national dignity insulted, a case in which his highness of Tripoli would immediately call forth his forces, the bashaw of America—utters a speech. Does a foreign invader molest the commerce in the very mouth of the harbors, an insult which would induce his highness of Tripoli to order out his fleets, his highness of America—utters a speech. Are the free citizens of America dragged from on board the vessels of their country, and forcibly detained in the war ships of another—his highness utters a speech. Is a peaceable citizen killed by the marauders of a foreign power, on the very shores of his country—his highness utters a speech. Does an alarming insurrection break out in a distant part of the empire—his highness utters a speech!—nay, more, for here he shows his “energies”—he most intrepidly dispatches a courier on horseback, and orders him to ride one hundred and twenty miles a day, with a most formidable army of proclamations, _i. e._ a collection of words, packed up in his saddlebags. He is instructed to show no favor nor affection; but to charge the thickest ranks of the enemy, and to speechify and batter by words the conspiracy and the conspirators out of existence. Heavens, my friend, what a deal of blustering is here! It reminds me of a dunghill cock in a farmyard, who, having accidentally in his scratchings found a worm, immediately begins a most vociferous cackling—calls around him his hen-hearted companions, who run chattering from all quarters to gobble up the poor little worm that happened to turn under his eye. O, Asem! Asem! on what a prodigious great scale is everything in this country!

Thus, then, I conclude my observations. The infidel nations have each a separate characteristic trait, by which they may be distinguished from each other; the Spaniards, for instance, may be said to sleep upon every affair of importance; the Italians to fiddle upon everything; the French to dance upon everything; the Germans to smoke upon everything; the British islanders to eat upon everything; and the windy subjects of the American logocracy to talk upon everything.

For ever thine,
MUSTAPHA.

FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.

How oft in musing mood my heart recalls,
From gray-beard father Time’s oblivious halls,
The modes and maxims of my early day,
Long in those dark recesses stow’d away:
Drags once more to the cheerful realms of light
Those buckram fashions, long since lost in night,
And makes, like Endor’s witch, once more to rise
My grogram grandames to my raptured eyes!
Shades of my fathers! in your pasteboard skirts,
Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts,
Your formal bag-wigs—wide-extended cuffs,
Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs
Gods! how ye strut, at times, in all your state,
Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate!
I see ye move the solemn minuet o’er,
The modest foot scarce rising from the floor;
No thundering rigadoon with boisterous prance,
No pigeon-wing disturb your _contre-danse_.
But silent as the gentle Lethe’s tide,
Adown the festive maze ye peaceful glide!
Still in my mental eye each name appears—
Each modest beauty of departed years;
Close by mamma I see her stately march,
Or sit, in all the majesty of starch;—
When for the dance a stranger seeks her hand.
I see her doubting, hesitating stand;
Yield to his claim with most fastidious grace,
And sigh for her intended in his place!
Ah! golden days; when every gentle fair
On sacred Sabbath conn’d with pious care
Her Holy Bible, or her prayer-book o’er,
Or studied honest Bunyan’s drowsy lore;
Travell’d with him the “Pilgrim’s Progress” through,
And storm’d the famous town of Man-soul too:—
Beat Eye and Ear-gate up with thundering jar,
And fought triumphant through the “Holy War;”
Or if, perchance, to lighter works inclined,
They sought with novels to relax the mind,
’Twas “Grandison’s politely” formal page,
Or “Clelia” or “Pamela” were the rage.
No plays were then—theatrics were unknown—
A learned pig, a dancing monkey shown,
The feats of Punch, a cunning juggler’s sleight,
Were sure to fill each bosom with delight.
An honest, simple, humdrum race we were,
Undazzled yet by fashion’s wildering glare;
Our manners unreserved, devoid of guile,
We knew not then the modern monster, Style:
Style, that with pride each empty bosom swells,
Puffs boys to manhood, little girls to belles.
Scarce from the nursery freed, our gentle fair
Are yielded to the dancing-master’s care;
And, ere the head one mite of sense can gain,
Are introduced ‘mid folly’s frippery train.
A stranger’s grasp no longer gives alarms,
Our fair surrender to their very arms.
And in the insidious waltz[56] will swim and twine,
And whirl and languish tenderly divine!
O, how I hate this loving, hugging dance;
This imp of Germany brought up in France:
Nor can I see a niece its windings trace,
But all the honest blood glows in my face.
“Sad, sad refinement this,” I often say;
’Tis modesty indeed refined away!
Let France its whim, its sparkling wit supply,
The easy grace that captivates the eye;
But curse their waltz—their loose, lascivious arts,
“That smooth our manners, to corrupt our hearts!”[57]
Where now those books, from which in days of yore
Our mothers gained their literary store?
Alas! stiff-skirted Grandison gives place
To novels of a new and rakish race;
And honest Bunyan’s pious dreaming lore,
To the lascivious rhapsodies of Moore.
And, last of all, behold the mimic stage,
Its morals lend to polish off the age;
With flimsy farce, a comedy miscall’d,
Garnished with vulgar cant, and proverbs bald,
With puns most puny, and a plenteous store
Of smutty jokes, to catch a gallery roar.
Or see, more fatal, graced with every art
To charm and captivate the female heart,
The false, “the gallant, gay Lothario” smiles.[58]
And loudly boasts his base seductive wiles—
In glowing colors paint Calista’s wrongs,
And with voluptuous scenes the tale prolongs.
When Cooper lends his fascinating powers,
Decks vice itself in bright alluring flowers,
Pleased with his manly grace, his youthful fire,
Our fair are lured the villain to admire;
While humbler virtue, like a stalking horse,
Struts clumsily and croaks in honest Morse.
Ah, hapless days! when trials thus combined.
In pleasing garb assail the female mind;
When every smooth, insidious snare is spread
To sap the morals and delude the head!
Not Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego,
To prove their faith and virtue here below,
Could more an angel’s helping hand require
To guide their steps uninjured through the fire,
Where had but heaven its guardian aid denied,
The holy trio in the proof had died.
If, then, their manly vigor sought supplies
From the bright stranger in celestial guise,
Alas! can we from feebler natures claim,
To brave seduction’s ordeal, free from blame;
To pass through fire unhurt like golden ore,
Though ANGEL MISSIONS bless the earth no more!

NOTES, BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

Footnote 56:

_Waltz._] As many of the retired matrons of this city, unskilled in
“gestic lore” are doubtless ignorant of the movements and figures of
this modest exhibition, I will endeavor to give some account of it, in
order that they may learn what odd capers their daughters sometimes
cut when from under their guardian wings.

On a signal being given by the music, the gentleman seizes the lady
round her waist; the lady scorning to be outdone in courtesy, very
politely takes the gentleman round the neck, with one arm resting
against his shoulder to prevent encroachments. Away then they go,
about, and about, and about—“About what, sir?”—about the room, madam,
to be sure. The whole economy of this dance consists in turning round
and round the room in a certain measured step: and it is truly
astonishing that this continued revolution does not set all their
heads swimming like a top; but I have been positively assured that it
only occasions a gentle sensation which is marvelously agreeable. In
the course of this circumnavigation, the dancers, in order to give the
charm of variety, are continually changing their relative
situations;—now the gentleman, meaning no harm in the world, I assure
you, madam, carelessly flings his arm about the lady’s neck, with an
air of celestial impudence, and anon, the lady, meaning as little harm
as the gentleman, takes him round the waist with most ingenuous modest
languishment, to the great delight of numerous spectators and
amateurs, who generally form a ring, as the mob do about a pair of
amazons pulling caps, or a couple of fighting mastiffs.

After continuing this divine interchange of hands, arms, et cætera,
for half an hour or so, the lady begins to tire, and with “eyes
upraised,” in most bewitching languor, petitions her partner for a
little more support. This is always given without hesitation. The lady
leans gently on his shoulder, their arms entwine in a thousand
seducing, mischievous curves—don’t be alarmed, madam—closer and closer
they approach each other, and in conclusion, the parties being
overcome with ecstatic fatigue, the lady seems almost sinking into the
gentleman’s arms, and then—“Well, sir! and what then?”—Lord, madam,
how should I know?

Footnote 57:

\.] My friend Pindar, and in fact our whole junto, has been accused of
an unreasonable hostility to the French nation; and I am informed by a
Parisian correspondent, that our first number played the very devil in
the court of St. Cloud. His imperial majesty got into a most
outrageous passion, and being withal a waspish little gentleman, had
nearly kicked his bosom friend, Talleyrand, out of the cabinet, in
paroxysms of his wrath. He insisted upon it that the nation was
assailed in its most vital part, being, like Achilles, extremely
sensitive to any attacks upon the heel. When my correspondent sent off
his dispatches, it was still in doubt what measures would be adopted;
but it was strongly suspected that vehement representations would be
made to our government. Willing, therefore, to save our Executive from
any embarrassment on the subject, and above all, from the disagreeable
alternative of sending an apology by the “Hornet,” we do assure Mr.
Jefferson that there is nothing further from our thoughts than the
subversion of the Gallic empire, or any attack on the interests,
tranquillity, or reputation of the nation at large, which we seriously
declare possesses the highest rank in our estimation. Nothing less
than the national welfare could have induced us to trouble ourselves
with this explanation; and in the name of the junto, I once more
declare, that when we toast a Frenchman, we merely mean one of these
inconnus, who swarmed to this country from the kitchens and barbers’
shops of Nantz, Bordeaux, and Marseilles—played game of leap-frog at
all our balls and assemblies—set this unhappy town hopping mad, and
passed themselves off on our tender-hearted damsels for unfortunate
noblemen, ruined in the revolution! Such only can wince at the lash,
and accuse us of severity; and we should be mortified in the extreme
if they did not feel our well-intended castigation.

Footnote 58:

_Fair Penitent._] The story of this play, if told in its native
language, would exhibit a scene of guilt and shame which no modest ear
could listen to without shrinking with disgust; but, arrayed as it is,
in all the splendor of harmonious, rich, and polished verse, it steals
into the heart like some gay, luxurious, smooth-faced villain, and
betrays it insensibly to immorality and vice; our very sympathy is
enlisted on the side of guilt; and the piety of Altamont, and the
gentleness of Lavinia, are lost in the splendid debaucheries of the
“gallant, gay Lothario,” and the blustering, hollow repentance of the
fair Calista, whose sorrow reminds us of that of Pope’s Heloise—“I
mourn the lover, not lament the fault.” Nothing is more easy than to
banish such plays from our stage. Were our ladies, instead of crowding
to see them again and again repeated, to discourage their exhibition
by absence, the stage would soon be indeed the school of morality, and
the number of “Fair Penitents,” in all probability, diminish.

NO. VIII.—SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1807.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

“In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow,
Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee—nor without thee.”

“Never, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, has there been known a more backward spring.” This is the universal remark among the almanac quidnuncs, and weather-wiseacres of the day; and I have heard it at least fifty-five times from old Mrs. Cockloft, who, poor woman, is one of those walking almanacs that foretell every snow, rain, or frost, by the shooting of corns, a pain in the bones, or an “ugly stitch in the side.” I do not recollect, in the whole course of my life, to have seen the month of March indulge in such untoward capers, caprices, and coquetries, as it has done this year; I might have forgiven these vagaries, had they not completely knocked up my friend Langstaff; whose feelings are ever at the mercy of a weathercock, whose spirits sink and rise with the mercury of a barometer, and to whom an east wind is as obnoxious as a Sicilian _sirocco_. He was tempted some time since, by the fineness of the weather, to dress himself with more than ordinary care, and take his morning stroll, but before he had half finished his peregrination, he was utterly discomfited, and driven home by a tremendous squall of wind, hail, rain, and snow, or, as he testily termed it, “a most villainous congregation of vapors.”

This was too much for the patience of friend Launcelot; he declared he would humor the weather no longer in its whimwhams; and, according to his immemorial custom on these occasions, retreated in high dudgeon to his elbow-chair to lie in of the spleen and rail at nature for being so fantastical: “Confound the jade,” he frequently exclaims, “what a pity Nature had not been of the masculine instead of the feminine gender; the almanac-makers might then have calculated with some degree of certainty.”

When Langstaff invests himself with the spleen, and gives audience to the blue devils from his elbow-chair, I would not advise any of his friends to come within gun-shot of his citadel with the benevolent purpose of administering consolation or amusement; for he is then as crusty and crabbed as that famous coiner of false money, Diogenes himself. Indeed his room is at such times inaccessible; and old Pompey is the only soul that can gain admission, or ask a question with impunity; the truth is, that on these occasions there is not a straw’s difference between them, for Pompey is as grum and grim and cynical as his master.

Launcelot has now been above three weeks in this desolate situation, and has, therefore, had but little to do in our last number. As he could not be prevailed on to give any account of himself in our introduction, I will take the opportunity of his confinement, while his back is turned, to give a slight sketch of his character—fertile in whimwhams and bachelorisms, but rich in many of the sterling qualities of our nature. Annexed to this article, our readers will perceive a striking likeness of my friend which was taken by that cunning rogue, Will Wizard, who peeped through the keyhole and sketched it off, as honest Launcelot sat by the fire, wrapped up in his flannel _robe de chambre_, and indulging in a mortal fit of the _hyp_. Now take my word for it, gentle reader, this is the most auspicious moment in which to touch off the phiz of a genuine humorist.

Of the antiquity of the Langstaff family I can say but little; except that I have no doubt it is equal to that of most families who have the privilege of making their own pedigree, without the impertinent interposition of a college of heralds. My friend Launcelot is not a man to blazon anything; but I have heard him talk with great complacency of his ancestor, Sir Rowland, who was a dashing buck in the days of Hardiknute, and broke the head of a gigantic Dane, at a game of quarter-staff, in presence of the whole court. In memory of this gallant exploit, Sir Rowland was permitted to take the name of Langstoffe, and to assume as a crest to his arms a hand grasping a cudgel. It is, however, a foible so ridiculously common in this country for people to claim consanguinity with all the great personages of their own name in Europe, that I should put but little faith in this family boast of friend Langstaff, did I not know him to be a man of most unquestionable veracity.

The whole world knows already that my friend is a bachelor; for he is, or pretends to be, exceedingly proud of his personal independence, and takes care to make it known in all companies where strangers are present. He is forever vaunting the precious state of “single blessedness,” and was, not long ago, considerably startled at a proposition of one of his great favorites, Miss Sophy Sparkle, “that old bachelors should be taxed as luxuries.” Launcelot immediately hied him home, and wrote a tremendous long representation in their behalf, which I am resolved to publish if it is ever attempted to carry the measure into operation. Whether he is sincere in these professions, or whether his present situation is owing to choice or disappointment, he only can tell; but if he ever does tell, I will suffer myself to be shot by the first lady’s eye that can twang an arrow. In his youth he was forever in love; but it was his misfortune to be continually crossed and rivaled by his bosom friend and contemporary beau, Pindar Cockloft, Esq., for as Langstaff never made a confidant on these occasions, his friends never knew which way his affections pointed; and so, between them both, the lady generally slipped through their fingers.

It has ever been the misfortune of Launcelot, that he could not for the soul of him restrain a good thing; and this fatality has drawn upon him the ill-will of many whom he would not have offended for the world. With the kindest heart under heaven, and the most benevolent disposition under heaven toward every being around him, he has been continually betrayed by the mischievous vivacity of his fancy, and the good-humored waggery of his feelings, into satirical sallies which have been treasured up by the invidious, and retailed out with the bitter sneer of malevolence, instead of the playful hilarity of countenance which originally sweetened and tempered and disarmed them of their sting. These misrepresentations have gained him many reproaches and lost him many a friend.

This unlucky characteristic played the mischief with him in one of his love affairs. He was, as I have before observed, often opposed in his gallantries by that formidable rival, Pindar Cockloft, Esq., and a most formidable rival he was; for he had Apollo, the nine muses, together with all the joint tenants of Olympus, to back him; and everybody knows what important confederates they are to a lover. Poor Launcelot stood no chance; the lady was cooped up in the poet’s corner of every weekly paper; and at length Pindar attacked her with a sonnet, that took up a whole column, in which he enumerated at least a dozen cardinal virtues, together with innumerable others of inferior consideration. Launcelot saw his case was desperate, and that unless he sat down forthwith, be-cherubimed and be-angeled her to the skies, and put every virtue under the sun in requisition, he might as well go hang himself, and so make an end of the business. At it, therefore, he went; and was going on very swimmingly, for in the space of a dozen lines he had enlisted under her command at least three-score and ten substantial housekeeping virtues, when unluckily for Launcelot’s reputation as a poet and the lady’s as a saint, one of those confounded good thoughts struck his laughter-loving brain—it was irresistible; away he went, full sweep before the wind, cutting and slashing, and tickled to death with his own fun; the consequence was, that by the time he had finished, never was poor lady so most ludicrously lampooned since lampooning came into fashion. But this was not half; so hugely was Launcelot pleased with this frolic of his wits, that nothing would do but he must show it to the lady, who, as well she might, was mortally offended, and forbid him her presence. My friend was in despair, but, through the interference of his generous rival, was permitted to make his apology, which, however, most unluckily happened to be rather worse than the original offense; for though he had studied an eloquent compliment, yet, as ill luck would have it, a most preposterous whimwham knocked at his pericranium, and inspired him to say some consummate good things, which, all put together, amounted to a downright hoax, and provoked the lady’s wrath to such a degree, that sentence of eternal banishment was awarded against him.

Launcelot was inconsolable, and determined in the true style of novel heroics to make the tour of Europe, and endeavor to lose the recollection of this misfortune amongst the gayeties of France and the classic charms of Italy; he accordingly took passage in a vessel, and pursued his voyage prosperously as far as Sandy Hook, where he was seized with a violent fit of sea-sickness; at which he was so affronted that he put his portmanteau into the first pilot-boat, and returned to town completely cured of his love and his rage for travelling.

I pass over the subsequent amours of my friend Langstaff, being but little acquainted with them; for, as I have already mentioned, he never was known to make a confidant of anybody. He always affirmed that a man must be a fool to fall in love, but an idiot to boast of it; ever denominated it the villainous passion; lamented that it could not be cudgeled out of the human heart; and yet could no more live without being in love with somebody or other than he could without whimwhams.

My friend Launcelot is a man of excessive irritability of nerve, and I am acquainted with no one so susceptible of the petty “miseries of human life;” yet its keener evils and misfortunes he bears without shrinking, and however they may prey in secret on his happiness, he never complains. This was strikingly evinced in an affair where his heart was deeply and irrevocably concerned, and in which his success was ruined by one for whom he had long cherished a warm friendship. The circumstance cut poor Langstaff to the very soul; he was not seen in company for months afterward, and for a long time he seemed to retire within himself, and battle with the poignancy of his feelings; but not a murmur or a reproach was heard to fall from his lips, though, at the mention of his friend’s name, a shade of melancholy might be observed stealing across his face, and his voice assumed a touching tone, that seemed to say he remembered his treachery “more in sorrow than in anger.” This affair has given a slight tinge of sadness to his disposition, which, however, does not prevent his entering into the amusements of the world; the only effect it occasions is, that you may occasionally observe him, at the end of a lively conversation, sink for a few minutes into an apparent forgetfulness of surrounding objects, during which time he seems to be indulging in some melancholy retrospection.

Langstaff inherited from his father a love of literature, a disposition for castle-building, a mortal enmity to noise, a sovereign antipathy to cold weather and brooms, and a plentiful stock of whimwhams. From the delicacy of his nerves he is peculiarly sensible to discordant sounds; the rattling of a wheelbarrow is “horrible;” the noise of children “drives him distracted;” and he once left excellent lodgings merely because the lady of the house wore high-heeled shoes, in which she clattered up and down stairs, till, to use his own emphatic expression, “they made life loathsome” to him. He suffers annual martyrdom from the razor-edged zephyrs of our “balmy spring,” and solemnly declares that the boasted month of May has become a perfect “vagabond.” As some people have a great antipathy to cats, and can tell when one is locked up in a closet, so Launcelot declares his feelings always announce to him the neighborhood of a broom—a household implement which he abominates above all others. Nor is there any living animal in the world that he holds in more utter abhorrence than what is usually termed a notable housewife; a pestilent being, who, he protests, is the bane of goodfellowship, and has a heavy charge to answer for the many offenses committed against the ease, comfort, and social enjoyments of sovereign man. He told me, not long ago, “that he had rather see one of the weird sisters flourish through his keyhole on a broomstick, than one of the servant-maids enter the door with a besom.”

My friend Launcelot is ardent and sincere in his attachments, which are confined to a chosen few, in whose society he loves to give free scope to his whimsical imagination; he, however, mingles freely with the world, though more as a spectator than an actor; and without an anxiety, or hardly a care to please, is generally received with welcome and listened to with complacency. When he extends his hand, it is in a free, open, liberal style; and when you shake it, you feel his honest heart throb in its pulsations. Though rather fond of gay exhibitions, he does not appear so frequently at balls and assemblies since the introduction of the drum, trumpet, and tambourine; all of which he abhors on account of the rude attack they make on his organs of hearing: in short, such is his antipathy to noise, that though exceedingly patriotic, yet he retreats every Fourth of July to Cockloft Hall, in order to get out of the way of the hubbub and confusion which make so considerable a part of the pleasure of that splendid anniversary.

I intend this article as a mere sketch of Langstaff’s multifarious character; his innumerable whimwhams will be exhibited by himself, in the course of this work, in all their strange varieties and the machinery of his mind, more intricate than the most subtile piece of clock-work, be fully explained. And trust me, gentle folk, his are the whimwhams of a courteous gentleman, full of most excellent qualities; honorable in his disposition, independent in his sentiments, and of unbounded good nature, as may be seen through all his works.

ON STYLE.

BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

STYLE, a manner of writing; title; pin of a dial; the pistil of
plants.—_Johnson._

STYLE, is ... style.—_Linkum Fidelius._

Now I would not give a straw for either of the above definitions, though I think the latter is by far the most satisfactory; and I do wish sincerely every modern numskull, who takes hold of a subject he knows nothing about, would adopt honest Linkum’s mode of explanation. Blair’s Lectures on this article have not thrown a whit more light on the subject of my inquiries; they puzzled me just as much as did the learned and laborious expositions and illustrations of the worthy professor of our college, in the middle of which I generally had the ill luck to fall asleep.

This same word Style, though but a diminutive word, assumes to itself more contradictions, and significations, and eccentricities, than any monosyllable in the language is legitimately entitled to. It is an arrant little humorist of a word, and full of whimwhams, which occasions me to like it hugely; but it puzzled me most wickedly on my first return from a long residence abroad, having crept into fashionable use during my absence; and had it not been for friend Evergreen, and that thrifty sprig of knowledge, Jeremy Cockloft the younger, I should have remained to this day ignorant of its meaning.

Though it would seem that the people of all countries are equally vehement in the pursuit of this phantom, style, yet in almost all of them there is a strange diversity in opinion as to what constitutes its essence; and every different class, like the pagan nations, adore it under a different form. In England, for instance, an honest cit packs up himself, his family and his style, in a buggy or tim-whisky, and rattles away on Sunday with his fair partner blooming beside him, like an eastern bride, and two chubby children, squatting like Chinese images at his feet. A baronet requires a chariot and pair; a lord must needs have a barouche and four; but a duke—O! a duke cannot possibly lumber his style along under a coach and six, and half a score of footmen into the bargain. In China a puissant Mandarin loads at least three elephants with style; and an overgrown sheep at the Cape of Good Hope, trails along his tail and his style on a wheelbarrow. In Egypt, or at Constantinople, style consists in the quantity of fur and fine clothes a lady can put on without danger of suffocation; here it is otherwise, and consists in the quantity she can put off without the risk of freezing. A Chinese lady is thought prodigal of her charms if she expose the tip of her nose, or the ends of her fingers, to the ardent gaze of bystanders; and I recollect that all Canton was in a buzz in consequence of the great belle, Miss Nangfous, peeping out of the window with her face uncovered! Here the style is to show not only the face, but the neck, shoulders, etc.; and a lady never presumes to hide them except when she is not “at home,” and not sufficiently undressed to see company.

This style has ruined the peace and harmony of many a worthy household; for no sooner do they set up for style, but instantly all the honest old comfortable _sans cérémonie_ furniture is discarded; and you stalk cautiously about, amongst the uncomfortable splendor of Grecian chairs, Egyptian tables, Turkey carpets, and Etruscan vases. This vast improvement in furniture demands an increase in the domestic establishment; and a family that once required two or three servants for convenience, now employs half a dozen for style.

Bell Brazen, late favorite of my unfortunate friend Dessalines, was one of these patterns of style; and whatever freak she was seized with, however preposterous, was implicitly followed by all who would be considered as admitted in the stylish arcana. She was once seized with a whimwham that tickled the whole court. She could not lay down to take an afternoon’s loll, but she must have one servant to scratch her head, two to tickle her feet, and a fourth to fan her delectable person while she slumbered. The thing took—it became the rage, and not a sable belle in all Hayti but what insisted upon being fanned, and scratched, and tickled in the true imperial style. Sneer not at this picture, my most excellent townswomen, for who among you but are daily following fashions equally absurd?

Style, accordingly to Evergreen’s account, consists in certain fashions, or certain eccentricities, or certain manners of certain people, in certain situations, and possessed of a certain share of fashion or importance. A red cloak, for instance, on the shoulders of an old market-woman is regarded with contempt; it is vulgar, it is odious: fling, however, its usurping rival, a red shawl, over the fine figure of a fashionable belle, and let her flame away with it in Broadway, or in a ball-room, and it is immediately declared to be the style.

The modes of attaining this certain situation, which entitle its holder to style, are various and opposite: the most ostensible is the attainment of wealth, the possession of which changes at once the pert airs of vulgar ignorance into fashionable ease and elegant vivacity. It is highly amusing to observe the gradation of a family aspiring to style, and the devious windings they pursue in order to attain it. While beating up against wind and tide, they are the most complaisant beings in the world; they keep “booing and booing,” as M’Sycophant says, until you would suppose them incapable of standing upright; they kiss their hands to everybody who has the least claim to style; their familiarity is intolerable, and they absolutely overwhelm you with their friendship and loving kindness. But having once gained the envied preeminence, never were beings in the world more changed. They assume the most intolerable caprices: at one time, address you with importunate sociability; at another, pass you by with silent indifference; sometimes sit up in their chairs in all the majesty of dignified silence; and at another time bounce about with all the obstreperous ill-bred noise of a little hoyden just broke loose from a boarding-school.

Another feature which distinguishes these new-made fashionables, is the inveteracy with which they look down upon the honest people who are struggling to climb up to the same envied height. They never fail to salute them with the most sarcastic reflections; and like so many worthy hodmen, clambering a ladder, each one looks down upon his next neighbor below, and makes no scruple of shaking the dust off his shoes into his eyes. Thus by dint of perseverance, merely, they come to be considered as established denizens of the great world; as in some barbarous nations an oyster shell is of sterling value, and a copper washed counter will pass current for genuine gold.

In no instance have I seen this grasping after style more whimsically exhibited, than in the family of my old acquaintance, Timothy Giblet. I recollect old Giblet when I was a boy, and he was the most surly curmudgeon I ever knew. He was a perfect scarecrow to the small-fry of the day, and inherited the hatred of all these unlucky little shavers: for never could we assemble about his door of an evening to play, and make a little hubbub, but out he sallied from his nest like a spider, flourished his formidable horsewhip, and dispersed the whole crew in the twinkling of a lamp. I perfectly remember a bill he sent in to my father for a pane of glass I had accidentally broken, which came well-nigh getting me a sound flogging; and I remember as perfectly that the next night I revenged myself by breaking half a dozen.

Giblet was as arrant a grubworm as ever crawled; and the only rules of right and wrong he cared a button for, were the rules of multiplication and addition, which he practiced much more successfully than he did any of the rules of religion or morality. He used to declare they were the true golden rules; and he took special care to put Cocker’s arithmetic in the hands of his children, before they had read ten pages in the Bible or the Prayer-book. The practice of these favorite maxims was at length crowned with the harvest of success; and after a life of self-denial and starvation, and after enduring all the pounds, shillings, and pence miseries of a miser, he had the satisfaction of seeing himself worth a plum, and of dying just as he had determined to enjoy the remainder of his days in contemplating his great wealth and accumulating mortgages.

His children inherited his money; but they buried the disposition, and every other memorial of their father, in his grave. Fired with a noble thirst for style, they instantly emerged from the retired lane in which themselves and their accomplishments had hitherto been buried; and they blazed, and they whizzed, and they cracked about town, like a nest of squibs and devils in a fire-work. I can liken their sudden eclat to nothing but that of the locust, which is hatched in the dust, where it increases and swells up to maturity, and after feeling for a moment the vivifying rays of the sun, bursts forth a mighty insect, and flutters, and rattles, and buzzes from every tree. The little warblers who have long cheered the woodlands with their dulcet notes, are stunned by the discordant racket of these upstart intruders, and contemplate, in contemptuous silence, their tinsel and their noise.

Having once started, the Giblets were determined that nothing should stop them in their career, until they had run their full course, and arrived at the very tip top of style. Every tailor, every shoemaker, every coachmaker, every milliner, every mantuamaker, every paperhanger, every piano teacher, and every dancing-master in the city, were enlisted in their service; and the willing wights most courteously answered their call; and fell to work to build up the fame of the Giblets, as they had done that of many an aspiring family before them. In a little time the young ladies could dance the waltz, thunder Lodoiska, murder French, kill time, and commit violence on the face of nature in a landscape in water-colors, equal to the best lady in the land; and the young gentlemen were seen lounging at corners of streets, and driving tandem; heard talking loud at the theatre, and laughing in church, with as much ease, and grace, and modesty, as if they had been gentlemen all the days of their lives.

And the Giblets arrayed themselves in scarlet, and in fine linen, and seated themselves in high places; but nobody noticed them except to honor them with a little contempt. The Giblets made a prodigious splash in their own opinion; but nobody extolled them except the tailors, and the milliners who had been employed in manufacturing their paraphernalia. The Giblets thereupon being, like Caleb Quotem, determined to have “a place at the review,” fell to work more fiercely than ever; they gave dinners, and they gave balls, they hired cooks, they hired fiddlers, they hired confectioners; and they would have kept a newspaper in pay, had they not all been bought up at that time for the election. They invited the dancing-men and the dancing-women, and the gormandizers, and the epicures of the city, to come and make merry at their expense; and the dancing-men and the dancing-women, and the epicures, and the gormandizers did come; and they did make merry at their expense; and they eat, and they drank, and they capered, and they danced, and they—laughed at their entertainers.

Then commenced the hurry and the bustle, and the mighty nothingness of fashionable life; such rattling in coaches! such flaunting in the streets! such slamming of box doors at the theatre! such a tempest of bustle and unmeaning noise wherever they appeared! The Giblets were seen here and there and everywhere; they visited everybody they knew, and everybody they did not know; and there was no getting along for the Giblets. Their plan at length succeeded. By dint of dinners, of feeding and frolicking the town, the Giblet family worked themselves into notice, and enjoyed the ineffable pleasure of being forever pestered by visitors who cared nothing about them; of being squeezed, and smothered, and parboiled at nightly balls and evening tea-parties; they were allowed the privilege of forgetting the very few old friends they once possessed; they turned their noses up in the wind at everything that was not genteel; and their superb manners and sublime affectation at length left it no longer a matter of doubt that the Giblets were perfectly in style.

——“Being, as it were, a small contentmente in a never contenting
subjecte; a bitter pleasaunte taste of a sweete seasoned sower; and,
all in all, a more than ordinarie rejoycing, in an extraordinarie
sorrow of delyghts.”—

_Link. Fidelius._

We have been considerably edified of late by several letters of advice from a number of sage correspondents, who really seem to know more about our work than we do ourselves. One warns us against saying anything more about ’Sbidlikens, who is a very particular friend of the writer, and who has a singular disinclination to be laughed at. This correspondent in particular inveighs against personalities, and accuses us of ill-nature in bringing forward old Fungus and Billy Dimple, as figures of fun to amuse the public. Another gentleman, who states that he is a near relation of the Cocklofts, proses away most soporifically on the impropriety of ridiculing a respectable old family; and declares that if we make them and their whimwhams the subject of any more essays, he shall be under the necessity of applying to our theatrical champions for satisfaction. A third, who, by the crabbedness of the handwriting, and a few careless inaccuracies in the spelling, appears to be a lady, assures us that the Miss Cocklofts, and Miss Diana Wearwell, and Miss Dashaway, and Mrs. ——, Will Wizard’s quondam flame, are so much obliged to us for our notice, that they intend in future to take no notice of us at all, but leave us out of all their tea-parties, for which we make them one of our best bows, and say, “thank you, ladies.”

We wish to heaven these good people would attend to their own affairs, if they have any to attend to, and let us alone. It is one of the most provoking things in the world that we cannot tickle the public a little, merely for our own private amusement, but we must be crossed and jostled by these meddling incendiaries, and, in fact, have the whole town about our ears. We are much in the same situation with an unlucky blade of a cockney, who, having mounted his bit of blood to enjoy a little innocent recreation, and display his horsemanship along Broadway, is worried by all those little yelping curs that infest our city, and who never fail to sally out and growl, and bark, and snarl, to the great annoyance of the Birmingham equestrian.

Wisely was it said by the sage Linkum Fidelius, “howbeit, moreover, nevertheless, this thrice-wicked towne is charged up to the muzzle with all manner of ill-natures and uncharitablenesses, and is, moreover, exceedinglie naughte.” This passage of the erudite Linkum was applied to the city of Gotham, of which he was once Lord Mayor, as appears by his picture hung up in the hall of that ancient city; but his observation fits this best of all possible cities “to a hair.” It is a melancholy truth that this same New York, though the most charming, pleasant, polished, and praiseworthy city under the sun, and in a word the _bonne bouche_ of the universe, is most shockingly ill-natured and sarcastic, and wickedly given to all manner of backslidings; for which we are very sorry, indeed. In truth, for it must come out like murder, one time or other, the inhabitants are not only ill-natured, but manifestly unjust; no sooner do they get one of our random sketches in their hands, but instantly they apply it most unjustifiably to some “dear friend,” and then accuse us vociferously of the personality which originated in their own officious friendship! Truly it is an ill-natured town, and most earnestly do we hope it may not meet with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah of old.

As, however, it may be thought incumbent upon us to make some apology for these mistakes of the town; and as our good-nature is truly exemplary, we would certainly answer this expectation, were it not that we have an invincible antipathy to making apologies. We have a most profound contempt for any man who cannot give three good reasons for an unreasonable thing; and will therefore condescend, as usual, to give the public three special reasons for never apologizing: first, an apology implies that we are accountable to somebody or another for our conduct; now, as we do not care a fiddle-stick, as authors, for either public opinion or private ill-will, it would be implying a falsehood to apologize; second, an apology would indicate that we had been doing what we ought not to have done. Now, as we never did and never intend to do anything wrong, it would be ridiculous to make an apology; third, we labor under the same incapacity in the art of apologizing that lost Langstaff his mistress; we never yet undertook to make an apology without committing a new offense, and making matters ten times worse than they were before; and we are, therefore, determined to avoid such predicaments in future.

But though we have resolved never to apologize, yet we have no particular objection to explain; and if this is all that’s wanted, we will go about it directly:—_allons_, gentlemen!—before, however, we enter upon this serious affair, we take this opportunity to express our surprise and indignation at the incredulity of some people. Have we not, over and over, assured the town that we are three of the best-natured fellows living? And is it not astonishing, that having already given seven convincing proofs of the truth of this assurance, they should still have any doubts on the subject? But as it is one of the impossible things to make a knave believe in honesty, so, perhaps, it may be another to make this most sarcastic, satirical, and tea-drinking city believe in the existence of good-nature. But to our explanation. Gentle reader!—for we are convinced that none but gentle or genteel readers can relish our excellent productions—if thou art in expectation of being perfectly satisfied with what we are about to say, thou mayest as well “whistle lillebullero,” and skip quite over what follows; for never wight was more disappointed than thou wilt be, most assuredly. But to the explanation: We care just as much about the public and its wise conjectures, as we do about the man in the moon and his whimwhams; or the criticisms of the lady who sits majestically in her elbow-chair in the lobster; and who, belying her sex, as we are credibly informed, never says anything worth listening to. We have launched our bark, and we will steer to our destined port with undeviating perseverance, fearless of being shipwrecked by the way. Good-nature is our steersman, reason our ballast, whim the breeze that wafts us along, and MORALITY our leading star.

NO. IX.—SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1807.

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

It in some measure jumps with my humor to be “melancholy and gentlemanlike” this stormy night, and I see no reason why I should not indulge myself for once. Away, then, with joke, with fun, and laughter, for a while; let my soul look back in mournful retrospect, and sadden with the memory of my good aunt Charity—who died of a Frenchman!

Stare not, O, most dubious reader, at the mention of a complaint so uncommon; grievously hath it afflicted the ancient family of the Cocklofts, who carry their absurd antipathy to the French so far, that they will not suffer a clove of garlic in the house; and my good old friend Christopher was once on the point of abandoning his paternal country mansion of Cockloft Hall, merely because a colony of frogs had settled in a neighboring swamp. I verily believe he would have carried his whimwham into effect, had not a fortunate drought obliged the enemy to strike their tents, and, like a troop of wandering Arabs, to march off towards a moister part of the country.