highways, and whom no one cares to appropriate, are thus beauteous, what must be the charms of those who are shut up in the seraglios, and never permitted to go abroad? Surely the region of beauty, the valley of the graces, can contain nothing so inimitably fair!

But, notwithstanding the charms of these infidel women, they are apt to have one fault, which is extremely troublesome and inconvenient.-Wouldst thou believe it, Asem, I have been positively assured, by a famous Dervise, (or doctor, as he is here called,) that at least one fifth part of them have souls? Incredible as it may seem to thee, I am the more inclined to believe them in possession of this monstrous superfluity from my own little experience, and from the information which I have derived from others. In walking the streets I have actually seen an exceedingly good looking woman with soul enough to box her husband's ears to his heart's content, and my very whiskers trembled with indignation at the abject state of these wretched infidels. I am told, moreover, that some of the women have soul enough to usurp the breeches of the men, but these, I suppose, are married and kept close, for I have not, in my rambles, met with any so extravagantly accoutred; others, I am informed, have soul enough to swear!-yea! by the beard of the great Omar, who prayed three times to each of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets of our most holy faith, and who never swore but once in his life, they actually swear!

Get thee to the mosque, good Asem, return thanks to our most holy prophet that he has been thus mindful of the comfort of all true mussulmen, and has given them wives with no more souls than cats and dogs, and other necessary animals of the household.

Thou wilt, doubtless, be anxious to learn our reception in this country, and how we were treated by a people whom we have been accustomed to consider as unenlightened barbarians.

On landing we were waited upon to our lodgings, I suppose according to the directions of the municipality, by a vast and respectable escort of boys and negroes, who shouted and threw up their hats, doubtless to do honour to the magnanimous Mustapha, Captain of a Ketch; they were somewhat ragged and dirty in their equipments, but this we

attributed to their republican simplicity. One of them, in the zeal of admiration, threw an old shoe, which gave thy friend rather an ungentle salutation on one side of the head, whereat I was not a little offended, until the interpreter informed us that this was the customary manner in which great men were honoured in this country, and that the more distinguished they were the more they were subjected to the attacks and peltings of the mob; upon this I bowed my head three times, with my hands to my turban, and made a speech in Arabic-Greek, which gave great satisfaction, and occasioned a shower of old shoes, hats, and so forth, that was exceedingly refreshing to us all.

Thou wilt not, as yet, expect that I should give thee an account of the laws and politics of this country; I will reserve them for some future letter, when I shall be more experienced in their complicated and, seemingly, contradictory nature.

This empire is governed by a grand and most puissant bashaw, whom they dignify with the title of President; he is chosen by persons who are chosen by an assembly elected by the people;-hence the mob is called the sovereign people, and the country free,-the body politic, doubtless, resembling a vessel that is best governed by its tail. The present bashaw* is a very plain old gentleman, something, they say, of a humourist, as he amuses himself with impaling butterflies and pickling tadpoles; he is rather declining in popularity, having given great offence by wearing red breeches and tying his horse to a post. The people of the United States have assured me that they themselves are the most enlightened people under the sun, but thou knowest that the barbarians of the desert, who assemble at the summer solstice, to shoot their arrows at that glorious luminary,

* Mr. Jefferson, who was, at that period, President of the United States, about sixty years of age; in person he is tall, and of slender make, possessed of a clear and penetrating eye; his manners and deportment are modest and affable. An enemy to luxury and parade, he lives at Monticello, in the simple and negligent style of a man wholly devoted to rural and philosophical pursuits. When the sitting of Congress required his presence at Washington he carried with him the same negligent simplicity; in the plainest garb, and unattended even by a single negro, he would ride up to his splendid mansion, tie his horse to the paling, and immediately receive the visits of foreign ministers and others who had business to transact with him.

in order to extinguish his burning rays, make precisely the same boast ;-which of them have the superior claim I shall not attempt to decide.

I have observed, with some degree of surprise, that the men of this country do not seem in haste to accommodate themselves even with the single wife, which alone the laws permit them to marry; this backwardness is, probably, owing to the misfortune of their absolutely having no female mutes among them; thou knowest how invaluable are these silent companions;-what a price is given for them in the East, and what entertaining wives they make; what delightful entertainment arises from beholding the silent eloquence of their signs and gestures! but a wife possessed both of a tongue and a soul,-monstrous! monstrous! Is it astonishing that these unhappy infidels should shrink from a union with a woman so preposterously endowed?

Thou hast, doubtless, read, in the works of Abul Faraj, the Arabian historian, the tradition which mentions that the muses were once upon the point of falling together by the ears about the admission of a tenth among their number, until she assured them, by signs, that she was dumb,whereupon they received her with great rejoicing. I should, perhaps, inform thee that there are but nine Christian muses, who were formerly pagans, but have since been converted, and that, in this country, we never hear of a tenth, unless some crazy poet wishes to pay a hyperbolical compliment to his mistress; on which occasion it goes hard but she figures as a tenth muse, or fourth grace, even though she should be more illiterate than a hottentot, and more ungraceful than a dancing-bear; since my arrival in this country I have met with no less than a hundred of these supernumerary muses and graces, and may Allah preserve me from ever meeting with any more!

When I have studied this people more profoundly, I will write thee again; in the mean time watch over my household, and do not beat my beloved wives, unless you catch them with their noses out at the window. Though far distant, and a slave, let me live in thy heart as thou livest in mine; think not, O friend of my soul, that the splendours of this luxurious capital, its gorgeous palaces, its stupendous mosques, and the beautiful females who run wild in herds about its streets, can obliterate thee from my remembrance;

thy name shall still be mentioned in the five-and-twenty prayers which I offer up daily; and may our great prophet, after bestowing on thee all the blessings of this life, at length, in a good old age, lead thee gently by the hand, to enjoy the dignity of bashaw of three tails in the blissful bowers of Eden. MUSTAPHA.

(To be Resumed.)

LINES ON THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.

Он, sweet my Baby! liest thou here,
So low, so cold, and so forsaken ?
And cannot a sad Father's tear
Thy once too lovely smiles awaken?
Ah, no! within this silent tomb

Thy Parents' hopes receive their doom!
Oh, sweet my Baby! round thy brow
The Rose and Yew are twin'd together;
The rose was blooming-so wast Thou-
Too blooming far for Death to gather.

The Yew was green,-and green to me
For ever lives thy Memory.

I have a flower, that press'd the mouth
Of one upon this cold bier lying,
To me more fragrant than the south,
O'er banks of op'ning violets flying;

Although its leaves look pale and dry,
How blooming to a Father's eye!

Oh, sweet my Baby! is thine head
Upon a rocky pillow lying,

And is the dreary grave thy bed

Thy lullaby a Father's sighing?

Oh, chang'd the hour since thou didst rest
Upon a Mother's faithful breast!

Oh! can I e'er forget the kiss

I gave thee on that morn of mourning,-
That last sad tender parting bliss
From Innocence to God returning!
May'st thou repay that kiss to me
In realms of bright eternity.

ORIGIN AND ANECDOTES

OF VARIOUS IMPORTANT INVENTIONS.

(Resumed from page

313.)

BELL SAVAGE INN.

The Spectator has attempted to elucidate the origin of the Bell Savage Inn, by supposing that it was intended to record the finding of a beautiful female in the woods, called in French La belle Sauvage. This hypothesis is more ingenious than probable, and it is yet uncertain what really caused the name. Some have said that it arose from the inn belonging to Lady Arabelle Savage, and familiarly designated from her name," Bell Savage's House," and hence represent that fact, (as rebusses were then very popular and fashionable,) by a Bell and a Savage,

THE BARBER'S POLE.

Many mistakes have been made on the origin of a barber's pole, which is vulgarly supposed to be indicative of the poll or head of his customers; this is a far fetched, although a popular conceit; that various-coloured staff being no more than a sign that its master could breathe a vein as well as mow a beard, and professed bleeding as well as shaving: the custom then being, which is yet observed in some villages, for the practitioner to put a staff into the hands of his patient while the latter was undergoing the operation of phlebotomy.

THE THREE BALLS.

The three blue balls suspended from the doors or windows of pawn-brokers, has been humorously enough described by the vulgar, as meaning that it was two chances to one, that the things pledged should ever be redeemed; but in fact, they are the arms of the Lombard Merchants, who gave the name to the street in which they dwelt, and who were the first to publicly lend money on chattel securities.

THE MAY POLE.

The leisure days' after seed-time had been chosen by our Saxon ancestors for folk-motes, or conventions of the people. Not till after the Norman conquest, the Pagan festival of Whitsuntide fully melted into the Christian holiday of Pen