and let me escape from this temple of abominations, or who knows but these people, who meet together to toil, worry, and fatigue themselves to death, and give it the name of pleasure-and who win each other's money by way of being agreeable may some one of them take a liking to me, and pick my pocket, or break my head, in a paroxysm of hearty good-will!"

Thy friend,

MUSTAPHA.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

66 Nunc est bibendum nunc pede libero
Pulsanda tellus."

Hor.

"Now is the time for wine and myrthful sportes,
For daunce, and song, and disportes of sych sortes."

Link. Fid.

The winter campaign has opened. Fashion has summoned her numerous legions at the sound of trumpet, tambourine, and drum, and all the harmonious minstrelsy of the orchestra, to hasten from the dull, silent, and insipid glades and groves, where they have vegetated during the summer, recovering from the ravages of the last winter's campaign. Our fair ones have hurried to town, eager to pay their devotions to the tutelary deity, and to make an

offering at her shrine of the few pale and transient roses they gathered in their healthful retreat. The fiddler rosins his bow, the cardtable devotee is shuffling her pack; the young ladies are industriously spangling muslins, and the tea-party heroes are airing their chapeaux bras and pea-blossom breeches, to prepare for figuring in the gay circle of smiles, and graces, and beauty. Now the fine lady forgets her country friends, in the hurry of fashionable engagements, or receives the simple intruder, who has foolishly accepted her thousand pressing invitations, with such politeness that the poor soul determines never to come again. Now the gay buck, who erst figured at Ballston, and quaffed the pure spring, exchanges the sparkling water for still more sparkling champagne, and deserts the nymph of the fountain to enlist under the standard of jolly Bacchus. In short, now is the important time of the year in which to harangue the bon-ton reader, and, like some ancient hero in front of the battle, to spirit him up to deeds of noble daring, or still more noble suffering, in the ranks of fashionable warfare.

Such, indeed, has been my intention, but the number of cases which have lately come before me, and the variety of complaints I have received from a crowd of honest and well-mean

ing correspondents, call for more immediate attention. A host of appeals, petitions, and letters of advice are now before me, and I believe the shortest way to satisfy my petitioners, memorialists, and advisers, will be to publish their letters, as I suspect the object of most of them is merely to get into print.

SIR:

TO ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

As you appear to have taken to yourself the trouble of meddling in the concerns of the beau monde, I take the liberty of appealing to you on a subject which, though considered merely as a very good joke, has occasioned me great vexation and expense. You must know I pride myself on being very useful to the ladies-that is, I take boxes for them at the theatre, go shopping with them, supply them with bouquets, and furnish them with novels from the circulating library. In consequence of these attentions I am become a great favorite, and there is seldom a party going on in the city without my having an invitation. The grievance I have to mention, is the exchange of hats which takes place on these occasions-for, to speak my mind freely, there are certain young gentlemen who seem to consider fashionable parties

as mere places to barter old clothes: and I am informed that a number of them manage by this great system of exchange to keep their crowns decently covered without their hatter profiting in the least by it.

It was but lately that I went to a private ball with a new hat, and on returning in the latter part of the evening, and asking for it, the scoundrel of a servant, with a broad grin, informed me that the new hats had been dealt out half an hour since, and they were then on the third quality, and I was in the end obliged to borrow a young lady's beaver rather than go home with any of the ragged remnants that were left.

Now, I would wish to know if there is no possibility of having these offenders punished by law; and whether it would not be advisable for ladies to mention in their cards of invitation, as a postscript, "Stealing of hats and shawls positively prohibited." At any rate, I would thank you, Mr. Evergreen, to discountenance the thing totally, by publishing in your paper that stealing a hat is no joke. Your humble servant,

WALTER WITHERS.

My correspondent is informed that the police have determined to take this matter into

consideration, and have set apart Saturday mornings for the cognizance of fashionable larcenies.

MR. EVERGREEN:

SIR-Do you think a married woman may lawfully put her husband right in a story, before strangers, when she knows him to be in the wrong; and can anything authorize a wife in the exclamation of-" Lord, my dear, how can you say so !"?

MARGARET TIMSON.

DEAR ANTHONY:

Going down Broadway this morning in a great hurry, I ran full against an object which at first put me to a prodigious nonplus. Observing it to be dressed in a man's hat, a cloth overcoat, and spatterdashes, I framed my apology accordingly, exclaiming, "My dear sir, I ask ten thousand pardons-I assure you, sir, it was entirely accidental-pray excuse me, sir,” etc. At every one of these excuses, the thing answered me with a downright laugh; at which I was not a little surprised, until, on resorting to my pocket-glass, I discovered that it was no other than my old acquaintance, Clarinda Trollop. I never was more chagrined in my life; for, being an old bachelor, I like to appear as