as snugly concealed as truth at the bottom of a well, or the mistletoe amid the shady branches of an oak; and it may at any time be drawn from its lurking-place, by those hewers of wood and drawers of water who labor in humbler walks of criticism. This is assuredly a most unpardonable error of the sage Mustapha, who had been the captain of a ketch; and, of course, as your nautical men are for the most part very learned, ought to have known better. But this is not the only blunder of the grave Mussulman, who swears by the head of Amrou, the beard of Barbarossa, and the sword of Khalid, as glibly as our good Christian soldiers anathematize body and soul, or a sailor his eyes and odd limbs. Now I solemnly pledge myself to the world, that in all my travels through the East, in Persia, Arabia, China, and Egypt, I never heard man, woman, or child, utter any of those preposterous and new-fangled asseverations; and that, so far from swearing by any man's head, it is considered, throughout the East, the greatest insult that can be offered to either the living or dead to meddle in any shape even with his beard. These are but two or three specimens of the exposures I would have made; but I should have descended still lower; nor would have spared the most insignificant and, or but, or nevertheless, provided I could have found a ditto in the Spectator or the dictionary; but all these minutiæ I bequeath to the Liliputian literati of this sagacious community, who are fond of hunting "such small deer," and I earnestly pray they may find full employment for a twelvemonth to come. But the most outrageous plagiarisms of friend Launcelot are those made on sundry living personages. Thus: Tom Straddle has evidently been stolen from a distinguished Brummagem emigrant, since they both ride on horseback; Dabble, the little great man, has his origin in a certain aspiring counsellor, who is rising in the world as rapidly as the heaviness of his head will permit; mine uncle John will bear a tolerable comparison, particularly as it respects the sterling qualities of his heart, with a worthy yeoman of Westchester County; and to deck out Aunt Charity, and the amiable Miss Cocklofts, he has rifled the charms of half the ancient vestals in the city. Nay, he has taken unpardonable liberties with my own on the substantial person! elevating me pedestals of a worthy gentleman from China, and tricking me out with claret coats, tight breeches, and silver-sprigged dickeys, in such sort that I can scarcely recognize my own resemblance; whereas I absolutely declare that I am an exceedingly good-looking man, neither too tall nor too short, too old nor too young, with a person indifferently robust, a head rather inclining to be large, an easy swing in my walk, and that I wear my own hair, neither queued, nor cropped, nor turned up, but in a fair, pendulous oscillating club, tied with a yard of ninepenny black ribbon. And now, having said all that occurs to me on the present pathetic occasion-having made my speech, wrote my eulogy, and drawn my portrait, I bid my readers an affectionate farewell; exhorting them to live honestly and soberly-paying their taxes, and reverencing the state, the church, and the corporationreading diligently the Bible and almanac, the newspaper and SALMAGUNDI; which is all the reading an honest citizen has occasion forand eschewing all spirit of faction, discontent, irreligion, and criticism. Which is all at present From their departed friend, wwww |