as to be understood by the most illiterate hearer. This will be infinitely preferable to the miserable Italian thunderer employed last winter by Mr. Ciceri, who performed in such an unnatural and outlandish tongue, that none but the scholars of Signor Da Ponte could understand him. It will be a further gratification to the patriotic audience to know that the present thunderer is a fellow-countryman, born at Dunderberg, among the echoes of the Highlands, and that he thunders with peculiar emphasis and pompous enunciation, in the true style of a Fourth of July orator.

In addition to all these additions, the manager has provided an entire new snow-storm, the very sight of which will be quite sufficient to draw a shawl over every naked bosom in the theatre; the snow is perfectly fresh, having been manufactured last August.

N.B. The outside of the theatre has been ornamented with a new chimney !!

No. XV.-Thursday, October 1, 1807.

TH

SKETCHES FROM NATURE.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

HE brisk northwesters which prevailed not long since had a powerful effect in arresting the progress of belles, beaux,

and wild pigeons in their fashionable northern tour, and turning them back to the more balmy region of the south. Among the rest, I was encountered, full butt, by a blast which set my teeth chattering, just as I doubled one of the frowning bluffs of the Mohawk Mountains, in my route to Niagara, and facing about incontinently, I forthwith scudded before the wind, and a few days since arrived at my old quarters in New York. My first care, on returning from so long an absence, was to visit the worthy family of the Cocklofts, whom I found safe burrowed in their country mansion. On inquiring for my highly respected coadjutor,

Langstaff, I learned, with great concern, that he had relapsed into one of his eccentric fits of the spleen, ever since the era of a turtle dinner given by old Cockloft to some of the neighboring squires, wherein the old gentleman had achieved a glorious victory in laying honest Launcelot fairly under the table. Langstaff, although fond of the social board and cheerful glass, yet abominates any excess, and has an invincible aversion to getting mellow, considering it a wilful outrage on the sanctity of the imperial mind, a senseless abuse of the body, and an unpardonable, because a voluntary, prostration of both mental and personal dignity. I have heard him moralize on the subject, in a style that would do honor to Michael Cassio himself; but I believe, if the truth were known, this antipathy rather rises from his having, as the phrase is, but a weak head, and nerves so extremely sensitive that he is sure to suffer severely from a frolic, and will groan and make resolutions against it for a week afterward. He therefore took this waggish exploit of old Christopher's, and the consequent quizzing which he underwent, in high dudgeon; had kept aloof from company for a fortnight, and appeared to be meditating some deep plan of retaliation upon his mischievous old crony. He had, however, for the last day or two,

shown some symptoms of convalescence: had listened, without more than half a dozen twitches of impatience, to one of Christopher's unconscionably long stories, and even was seen to smile, for the one hundred and thirtieth time, at a venerable joke originally borrowed from Joe Miller, but which, by dint of long occupancy, and frequent repetition, the old gentleman now firmly believes happened to himself somewhere in New England.

As I am well acquainted with Launcelot's haunts, I soon found him out. He was lolling on his favorite bench, rudely constructed at the foot of an old tree, which is full of fantastical twists, and with its spreading branches forms a canopy of luxuriant foliage. This tree is a kind of chronicle of the short reigns of his uncle John's mistresses; and its trunk is sorely wounded with carvings of true lovers' knots, hearts, darts, names, and inscriptions !-frail memorials of the variety of the fair dames who captivated the wandering fancy of that old cavalier in the days of his youthful romance. Launcelot holds this tree in particular regard, as he does everything else connected with the memory of his good uncle John. He was reclining, in one of his usual brown studies, against its trunk, and gazing pensively upon the river that glided just by, washing the

drooping branches of the dwarf willows that fringed its bank. My appearance roused him; he grasped my hand with his usual warmth, and with a tremulous but close pressure, which spoke that his heart entered into the salutation. After a number of affectionate inquiries and felicitations, such as friendship, not form, dictated, he seemed to relapse into his former flow of thought, and to resume the chain of ideas my appearance had broken for a moment.

"I was reflecting," said he, "my dear Anthony, upon some observations I made in our last number; and considering whether the sight of objects once dear to the affections, or of scenes where we have passed different happy periods of early life, really occasions most enjoyment or most regret. Renewing our acquaintance with well-known and long-separated objects, revives, it is true, the recollection of former pleasures, and touches the tenderest feelings of the heart; as the flavor of a delicious beverage will remain upon the palate long after the cup has parted from the lips. But, on the other hand, my friend, these same objects are too apt to awaken us to a keener recollection of what we were when they once delighted us; and to provoke a mortifying and melancholy contrast with what we are at present. They act, in a manner, as milestones of existence,