With a little affected good-nature, and cry, "Nobody regrets the thing deeper than I." Our young ladies nibble a good name in play, As for pastime they nibble a biscuit away: While with shrugs and surmises, the toothless old dame,

As she mumbles a crust she will mumble a

name;

And as the fell sisters astonished the Scot,
In predicting of Banquo's descendants the lot,
Making shadows of kings, amid flashes of light,
To appear in array and to frown in his sight,
So they conjure up spectres all hideous in hue,
Which, as shades of their neighbors, are passed
in review.

The wives of our cits of inferior degree
Will soak up repute in a little bohea;
The potion is vulgar, and vulgar the slang
With which on their neighbor's defects they
harangue;

But the scandal improves, a refinement in wrong,

As our matrons are richer and rise to souchong. With hyson-a beverage that 's still more refin'd,

Our ladies of fashion enliven their mind,
And by nods, innuendoes, and hints, and what

not,

Reputations and tea send together to pot;

While madam in cambrics and laces array'd, With her plate and her liveries in splendid parade,

Will drink in imperial a friend at a sup,

Or in gunpowder blow them by dozens all up. Ah me! how I groan when with full swelling sail,

Wafted stately along by the favoring gale,
A China ship proudly arrives in our bay,
Displaying her streamers and blazing away.
O! more fell to our port, is the cargo she bears,
Than grenadoes, torpedoes, or warlike affairs;
Each chest is a bombshell thrown into our
town

To shatter repute and bring character down.

Ye Samquas, ye Chinquas, ye Chouquas, so

free,

Who discharge on our coast your cursed quantums of tea,

O think, as ye waft the sad weed from your

strand,

Of the plagues and vexations ye deal to our

land.

As the Upas' dread breath, o'er the plain where it flies,

Empoisons and blasts each green blade that may rise,

So wherever the leaves of your shrubs find their

way,

The social affections soon suffer decay;

Like to Java's drear waste they embarren the

heart,

Till the blossoms of love and of friendship depart.

Ah, ladies, and was it by heaven design'd That ye should be merciful, loving, and kind? Did it form you like angels, and send you below

To prophesy peace-to bid charity flow?
And have ye just left your primeval estate,
And wandered so widely-so strangely of late?
Alas! the sad cause I too plainly can see-
These evils have all come upon you through
tea!

Cursed weed! that can make our faint spirits resign

The character mild of their mission divine; That can blot from their bosoms that tender

ness true,

Which from female to female forever is due! O, how nice is the texture-how fragile the frame

Of that delicate blossom, a female's fair fame! 'Tis the sensitive plant; it recoils from the breath,

And shrinks from the touch as if pregnant with

death.

How often, how often, has innocence sigh'd;

Has beauty been reft of its honor-its pride; Has virtue, though pure as an angel of light, Been painted as dark as a demon of night: All offer'd up victims, an auto de fe,

At the gloomy cabals—the dark orgies of tea!
If I, in the remnant that 's left me of life,
Am to suffer the torments of slanderous strife,
Let me fall, I implore, in the slangwhanger's
claw,

Where the evil is open, and subject to law;
Not nibbled, and mumbled, and put to the

rack

By the sly underminings of tea-party clack: Condemn me, ye gods, to a newspaper roast

ing,

But spare me ! O, spare me, a tea-table toast

ing!

No. XX.-Monday, January 25, 1808.

I

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

Extremum hunc mihi concede laborem."- Virg.

"Soft you, a word or two before we part."

N this season of festivity, when the gate of time swings open on its hinges, and an

honest, rosy-faced New Year comes wad

dling in, like a jolly, fat-sided alderman, loaded with good wishes, good humor, and minced pies, at this joyous era it has been the custom from time immemorial, in this ancient and respectable city, for periodical writers, from reverend, grave, and potent essayists like ourselves, down to the humble but industrious editors of magazines, reviews, and newspapers, to tender their subscribers the compliments of the season; and when they have slyly thawed their hearts with a little of the sunshine of flattery, to conclude by delicately dunning them for their arrears of subscription money. In like manner the carriers of newspapers, who