cordiality of intercourse. The good-natured philosopher still finds in Venice the greatest mixture of liveliness and sentiment: the restless man of genius, impatient of the contradiction of his young hopes, still finds there something to admire and to love. If the Venetians have been thought of too amorous a disposition, they are acknowledged to be temperate in every other respect, and to make excellent parents and kinsfolk and it is to be observed that in many of the cities of Italy, the proneness to love has gradually produced a state of opinion on those matters, less severe than in some other countries; so that they do not violate their consciences so much as might be supposed, and the guilt is of necessity diminished with the sense of it. A late traveller says, that the most striking thing after all in Venice, is the extreme kindness and attentiveness of all ranks of people to one another. A young man going by with a burden, begs his "good father," (any given old gentlemen) to let him have way; and the good father in as unaffected a tone is happy to make way for his "son." It may be answered, considering the Venetian character, that this is but natural; and that the old gentleman does not know whom he may be talking to. But these, we conceive, are evidences which the disputatious moralist would do better in letting alone. FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI. (Resumed from page 198.) THE deep shadows of midnight gather around me—the footsteps of the passenger have ceased in the streets, and nothing disturbs the holy silence of the hour, save the sound of distant drums, mingled with the shouts, the bawlings, and the discordant revelry of his majesty, the sovereign mob. Let the hour be sacred to friendship, and consecrated to thee, oh thou brother of my soul! Oh, Asem! I almost shrink at the recollection of the scenes of confusion, of licentious disorganization, which I have witnessed during the last three days. I have beheld this whole city, nay this whole state, given up to the tongue and the pen; to the puffers, the bawlers, the babblers, and the slang-whangers. I have beheld the community convulsed with a civil war, (or, civil talk,) individuals verbally massacred, families annihilated by whole sheets full, and slang-whangers coolly bathing their pens in ink, and rioting in the slaughter of their thousands. I have seen, in short, that awful despot, the people, in the moment of unlimited power, wielding newspapers in one hand, and, with the other, scattering mud and filth about, like some desperate lunatic relieved from the restraints of his strait waistcoat. I have seen beggars on horseback, ragamuffins riding in coaches, and swine seated in places of honour;—I have seen liberty, I have seen equality, I have seen fraternity I have seen that great political puppet-show,-AN ELEC TION. * A few days ago the friend, whom I have mentioned in some of my former letters, called upon me to accompany him to witness this grand ceremony, and we forthwith sallied out to the polls, as he called them. Though, for several weeks before this splendid exhibition, nothing else had been * This essay satirises, with considerable humour, the busy consequence and affected patriotism of those who lead the people, or rather the mob, at elections, which are carried on in the United States much upon the same popular plan as in Great Britain. It is true that the present mode of election has its inconveniences and evils, like every thing else; but who will propose a more unexceptionable method of government than that which is derived from the people. While human nature continues to be the same as it ever has been from the beginning of the world, it is ridiculous to expect perfection in any thing that originates with man. I do not, however, mean to say that the writers of this essay have such an object in view: their aim is evidently nothing more thau laugh folly out of countenance, and to check the excesses of the multitude by good-humoured satire. In America there is a greater field for the display of political feeling than in England, inasmuch as voting in that country is not under so many restrictions. In America it may almost be said that the mob vote; but, in England, the mob (i.e. the lower orders) do nothing more than espouse the cause of one or other side, as they fancy; affording the candidates no other assistance at the poll than cheering acclamations. Every white man in the United States, who has resided there one year and rents a tenement of the yearly value of forty shillings has a right to vote; but, in England, those only can vote who possess a freehold to that amount, a few instances in boroughs, &c. excepted. It may, therefore, be easily perceived how much the great body of the American people are interested at an election, and how much their form of government induces almost every man to take an active part in the politics of his country. talked of, yet I do assure thee I was entirely ignorant of its nature; and when, on coming up to a church, my companion informed me we were at the poll, I supposed that an election was some great religious ceremony, like the feast of Ramazan, or the great festival of Haraphat, so celebrated in the east. My friend, however, undeceived me at once, and entered into a long dissertation on the nature and object of an election, the substance of which was nearly to this effect: -"You know," said he," that this country is engaged in a violent internal warfare, and suffers a variety of evils from civil dissentions. An election is the grand trial of strength; the decisive battle when the belligerents draw out their forces in martial array; when every leader, burning with warlike ardour, and encouraged by the shouts and acclamations of tatterdemalians, buffoons, dependents, parasites, toad-eaters, scrubs, vagrants, mumpers, ragamuffins, bravos, and beggars, in his rear, and puffed up by his bellows-blowing slang-whangers, waves gallantly the banners of faction, and presses forward TO OFFICE AND IM MORTALITY. "For a month or two previous to the critical period which is to decide this important affair, the whole community is in a ferment. Every man, of whatever rank or degree, (such is the wonderful patriotism of the people,) disinterestedly neglects his business, to devote himself to his country,--and not an insignificant fellow but feels himself inspired, on this occasion, with as much warmth in favour of the cause he has espoused as if all the comfort of his life, or even his life itself, was dependent on the issue. Grand councils of war are, in the first place, called by the different powers, which are dubbed general meetings, where all the head workmen of the party collect and arrange the order of battle,-appoint the different commanders and their subordinate instruments, and furnish the funds indispensable for supplying the expenses of the war. Inferior councils are next called in the different classes, or wards, consisting of young cadets, who are candidates for offices, idlers who go there from mere curiosity, and orators who appear for the purpose of detailing all the crimes, the faults, or the weaknesses, of their opponents, and speaking the sense of the meeting, as it is called;-for as the meeting generally consists of men, whose quota of sense, taken individually, would make but a poor figure, these orators are appointed to collect it all in a lump, when I assure you it makes a very formidable appearance, and furnishes sufficient matter to spin an oration of two or three hours. "The orators, who declaim at these meetings, are, with a few exceptions, men of most profound and perplexed eloquence; who are the oracles of barbers' shops, market-places, and porter-houses; and who you may see every day at the corner of the streets, taking honest men prisoners by the button, and haranguing them without mercy and without end. These orators, in addressing an audience, generally mount a chair, a table, or an empty beer-barrel, (which last is supposed to afford considerable inspiration,) and thunder away their combustible sentiments at the heads of the audience, who are generally so busily employed in smoking, drinking, and hearing themselves talk, that they seldom hear a word of the matter. This, however, is of little moment; for, as they go there to agree, at all events, to a certain set of resolutions, or articles of war, it is not at all necessary to hear the speech, more especially as few would understand it if they did. Do not suppose, however, that the minor persons of the meeting are entirely idle. Besides smoking and drinking, which are generally practised, there are few who do not go with as great a desire to talk as the orator himself;—each has his little circle of listeners, in the midst of whom he sets his hat on one side of his head, and deals out matter-of-fact information, and draws self-evident conclusions, with the pertinacity of a pedant, and to the great edification of his gaping auditors. Nay, the very urchins from the nursery, who are scarcely emancipated from the dominion of birch, on these occasions strut pigmy great men, bellow for the instruction of grey-bearded ignorance, and, like the frog in the fable, endeavour to puff themselves up to the size of the great object of their emulation-the principal orator." "But, head of Mahomet," cried I, " is it not preposterous to a degree, for those puny whipsters to attempt to lecture age and experience? they should be sent to school to learn better." "Not at all," replied my friend; as an election is nothing more than a war of words, the man who can wag his tongue with the greatest elasticity, whether "for, he speaks to the purpose or not, is entitled to lecture at ward-meetings and polls, and instruct all who are inclined to listen to him.-You may have remarked a ward-meeting of politic dogs, where, although the great dog is ostensively the leader, and makes the most noise, yet every little scoundrel of a cur has something to say, and, in proportion to his insignificance, fidgets, and worries, and yelps about mightily, in order to obtain the notice and approbation of his betters. Thus it is with these little beardless bread-and-butter politicians, who, on this occasion, escape from the jurisdiction of their mammas, to attend to the affairs of the nation. You will see them engaged in dreadful wordy contest with old cartmen, cobblers, and tailors, and plume themselves not a little, if they should chance to gain a victory.-Aspiring spirits!-how interesting are the first dawnings of political greatness! An election, my friend, is the nursery or hotbed of genius in a logocracy-and I look with enthusiasm on a troop of these Lilliputian partizans, as so many chatterers, and orators, and puffers, and slang-whangers, in embryo, who will one day take an important part in the quarrels and wordy wars of their country. "As the time for fighting the decisive battle approaches, appearances become more and more alarming;-committees are appointed, who hold little encampments, from whence they send out small detachments of tatlers, to reconnoitre, harass, and skirmish, with the enemy, and, if possible, ascertain their numbers; every body seems big with the mighty event that is impending;—the orators they gradually swell up beyond their usual size;-the little orators they grow greater and greater;—the secretaries of the war-committees strut about, looking like wooden oracles ;-the puffers put on the airs of mighty consequence;-the slangwhangers deal out direful inuendoes, and threats of doughty import; and all is buzz, murmur, suspense, and sublimity! "At length the day arrives. The storm that has been so long gathering, and threatening in distant thunders, bursts forth in terrible explosion. All business is at an end -the whole city is in a tumult-the people are running helter-skelter-they know not whither, and they know not why. The hackney coaches rattle through the streets with thundering vehemence, loaded with recruiting serjeants, who have been prowling in cellars and caves, to unearth |