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before."wheel to the left!" cried the officer; ting about the streets on a holiday-and as the they did so, and again as before the inveterate women and children were particularly fond of pump intercepted their progress. "Right about such raree shows, it was ordered that the tailors of face!" cried the officer; the men obeyed, but the different cities throughout the empire should, bungled-they faced back to back. Upon this the forthwith, go to work, and cut out and manufacture bashaw with two tails, with great coolness, un- soldiers as fast as their shears and needles would dauntedly ordered his men to push right forward, permit. pell-mell, pump or no pump; they gallantly obeyed; These soldiers have no pecuniary pay; and their after unheard-of acts of bravery the pump was car- only recompense for the immense services which ried, without the loss of a man, and the army they render the country, in their voluntary parades, firmly entrenched itself under the very walls of the is the plunder of smiles, and winks, and nods which castle. The bashaw had then a council of war with they extort from the ladies. As they have no ophis officers; the most vigorous measures were portunity, like the vagrant Arabs, of making inresolved on. An advance guard of musicians were roads on their neighbours; and as it is necessary ordered to attack the castle without mercy. Then to keep up their military spirit, the town is therethe whole band opened a most tremendous battery fore now and then, but particularly on two days of of drums, fifes, tambourines, and trumpets, and the year, given up to their ravages. The arrangekept up a thundering assault, as if the castle, like ments are contrived with admirable address, so that the walls of Jericho, spoken of in the Jewish chron- every officer, from the bashaw down to the drumicles, would tumble down at the blowing of rams' major, the chief of the eunuchs, or musicians, shall horns. After some time a parley ensued. The have his share of that invaluable booty, the admigrand bashaw of the city appeared on the battle-ration of the fair. As to the soldiers, poor animents of the castle, and as far as I could under- mals, they, like the privates in all great armies, stand from circumstances, dared the little bashaw have to bear the brunt of danger and fatigue, while of two tails to single combat;-this thou knowest their officers receive all the glory and reward. The was in the style of ancient chivalry:—the little narrative of a parade day will exemplify this more bashaw dismounted with great intrepidity, and as- clearly. cended the battlements of the castle, where the great bashaw waited to receive him, attended by numerous dignitaries and worthies of his court, one of whom bore the splendid banners of the castle. The battle was carried on entirely by words, according to the universal custom of this country, of which I shall speak to thee more fully hereafter. The grand bashaw made a furious attack in a speech of considerable length; the little bashaw, by no means appalled, retorted with great spirit. The grand bashaw attempted to rip him up with an argument, or stun him with a solid fact; but the little bashaw parried them both with admirable adroitness, and run him clean through and through with a syllogism. The grand bashaw was overthrown, the banners of the castle yielded up to the little bashaw, and the castle surrendered after a vigorous defence of three hours,-during which the besiegers suffered great extremity from muddy streets and a drizzling atmosphere.

On returning to dinner I soon discovered that as usual I had been indulging in a great mistake. The matter was all clearly explained to me by a fellow lodger, who on ordinary occasions moves in the humble character of a tailor, but in the present instance figured in a high military station, denominated corporal. He informed me that what I had mistaken for a castle was the splendid palace of the municipality, and that the supposed attack was nothing more than the delivery of a flag given by the authorities, to the army, for its magnanimous defence of the town for upwards of twenty years past, that is, ever since the last war! Oh, my friend, surely every thing in this country is on a great scale!--the conversation insensibly turned upon the military establishment of the nation; and I do assure thee that my friend, the tailor, though being, according to a national proverb, but the ninth part of a man, yet acquitted himself on military concerns as ably as the grand bashaw of the empire himself. He observed that their rulers had decided that wars were very useless and expensive, and ill befitting an economic, philosophic nation; they had therefore made up their minds never to have any wars, and consequently there was no need of soldiers or military discipline. As, however, it was thought highly ornamental to a city to have a number cf men drest in fine clothes and feathers, strutVOL. II.-15.

The chief bashaw, in the plenitude of his authority, orders a grand review of the whole army at two o'clock. The bashaw with two tails, that he may have an opportunity of vapouring about as greatest man on the field, orders the army to assemble at twelve. The kiaya, or colonel, as he is called, that is, commander of one hundred and twenty men, orders his regiment or tribe to collect one mile at least from the place of parade at eleven. Each captain, or fag-rag as we term them, commands his squad to meet at ten at least a half mile from the regimental parade; and to close all, the chief of the eunuchs orders his infernal concert of fifes, trumpets, cymbals, and kettle-drums to assemble at ten! from that moment the city receives no quarter. All is noise, hooting, hubbub, and combustion. Every window, door, crack, and loop-hole, from the garret to the cellar, is crowded with the fascinating fair of all ages and of all complexions. The mistress smiles through the windows of the drawing-room; the chubby chambermaid lolls out of the attic casement, and a host of sooty wenches roll their white eyes and grin and chatter from the cellar door.Every nymph seems anxious to yield voluntarily that tribute which the heroes of their country demand. First struts the chief eunuch, or drum-major, at the head of his sable band, magnificently arrayed in tarnished scarlet. Alexander himself could not have spurned the earth more superbly. A host of ragged boys shout in his train, and inflate the bosom of the warrior with tenfold self-complacency. After he has rattled his kettle-drums through the town, and swelled and swaggered like a turkey-cock before all the dingy Floras, and Dianas, and Junoes, and Didoes of his acquaintance, he repairs to his place of destination loaded with a rich booty of smiles and approbation. Next comes the FAG-RAG, or captain, at the head of his mighty band, consisting of one lieutenant, one ensign, or mute, four sergeants, four corporals, one drummer, one fifer, and if he has any privates, so much the better for himself. In marching to the regimental parade he is sure to paddle through the street or lane which is honoured with the residence of his mistress or intended, whom he resolutely lays under a heavy contribution. Truly it is delectable to bchold these heroes, as they march along, cast side glances at the upper windows; to collect the smiles,

the nods, and the winks, which the enraptured fair | through every street; the fair ones throng to their ones lavish profusely on the magnanimous defenders windows,-the soldiers look every way but straight of their country.

forward. "Carry arms," cries the bashaw-" tanta ra-ra," brays the trumpet-"rub-a-dub,” roars the drum-"hurraw," shout the ragamuffins. The bashaw smiles with exultation-every fag-rag feels himself a hero-"none but the brave deserve the fair!" head of the immortal Amrou, on what a great scale is every thing in this country.

The Fag-rags having conducted their squads to their respective regiments, then comes the turu of the colonel, a bashaw with no tails, for all eyes are now directed to him; and the fag-rags, and the eunuchs, and the kettle-drummers, having had their hour of notoriety, are confounded and lost in the military crowd. The colonel sets his whole regi- Ay, but you'll say, is not this unfair that the offi ment in motion; and, mounted on a mettlesome cers should share all the sports while the privates charger, frisks and fidgets, and capers, and plunges undergo all the fatigue? truly, my friend, I indulged in front, to the great entertainment of the multi- the same idea, and pitied from my heart the poor tude and the great hazard of himself and his neigh- fellows who had to drabble through the mud and bours. Having displayed himself, his trappings, the mire, toiling under ponderous cocked hats, which his horse, and his horsemanship, he at length ar- seemed as unwieldy and cumbrous as the shell rives at the place of general rendezvous; blessed which the snail lumbers along on his back. I soon with the universal admiration of his country-women. found out, however, that they have their quantum I should perhaps mention a squadron of hardy vet- of notoriety. As soon as the army is dismissed, the erans, most of whom have seen a deal of service city swarms with little scouting parties, who fire off during the nineteen or twenty years of their exist- their guns at every corner, to the great delight of ence, and who, most gorgeously equipped in tight all the women and children in their vicinity; and we green jackets and breeches, trot and amble, and unto any dog, or pig, or hog, that falls in the way gallop and scamper like little devils through every of these magnanimous warriors; they are shown ro street and nook and corner and poke-hole of the quarter. Every gentle swain repairs to pass the city, to the great dread of all old people and sage evening at the feet of his dulcinea, to play "he sol matrons with young children. This is truly sub-dier tired of war's alarms," and to captivate her with lime! this is what I call making a mountain out of the glare of his regimentals; excepting some ama mole-hill. Oh, my friend, on what a great scale bitious heroes who strut to the theatre, flame away is every thing in this country. It is in the style of in the front boxes, and hector every old apple-woman the wandering Arabs of the desert El-tih. Is a vil-in the lobbies. lage to be attacked, or a hamlet to be plundered, the whole desert, for weeks beforehand, is in a buzz; —such marching and countermarching, ere they can concentrate their ragged forces! and the consequence is, that before they can bring their troops into action, the whole enterprise is blown.

Such, my friend, is the gigantic genius of this na tion, and its faculty of swelling up nothings into importance. Our bashaw of Tripoli will review his troops, of some thousands, by an early hour in the morning. Here a review of six hundred men is made the mighty work of a day! with us a bashaw of two tails is never appointed to a command of less than ten thousand men; but here we behold every grade, from the bashaw down to the drum-major, in a force of less than one-tenth of the number. By the beard of Mahomet, but every thing here is indeed on a great scale !

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

The army being all happily collected on the battery, though, perhaps, two hours after the time appointed, it is now the turn of the bashaw, with two tails, to distinguish himself. Ambition, my friend, is implanted alike in every heart; it pervades each bosom, from the bashaw to the drum-major. This is a sage truism, and I trust, therefore, it will not be disputed. The bashaw, fired with that thirst for glory, inseparable from the noble mind, is anxious to reap a full share of the laurels of the day and bear off his portion of female plunder. The drums beat, the fifes whistle, the standards wave proudly in the I WAS not a little surprised the other morning at air. The signal is given! thunder roars the cannon! a request from Will Wizard that I would accom away goes the bashaw, and away go the tails!pany him that evening to Mrs. -'s ball. The re The review finished, evolutions and military ma- quest was simple enough in itself, it was only singu nœuvres are generally dispensed with for three ex-lar as coming from Will;-of all my acquaintance cellent reasons; first, because the army knows very Wizard is the least calculated and disposed for the little about them; second, because as the country society of ladies-not that he dislikes their company; has determined to remain always at peace, there is on the contrary, like every man of pith and marrow, no necessity for them to know any thing about them; he is a professed admirer of the sex; and had he and third, as it is growing late, the bashaw must been born a poet, would undoubtedly have bespatdespatch, or it will be too dark for him to get his tered and be-rhymed some hard-named goddess, quota of the plunder. He of course orders the until she became as famous as Petrarch's Laura, or whole army to march; and now, my friend, now Waller's Sacharissa; but Will is such a confounded comes the tug of war, now is the city completely bungler at a bow, has so many odd bachelor habits, sacked. Open fly the battery-gates, forth sallies the and finds it so troublesome to be gallant, that he bashaw with his two tails, surrounded by a shouting generally prefers smoking his segar and telling his body-guard of boys and negroes! then pour forth story among cronies of his own gender :-and thunhis legions, potent as the pismires of the desert! the dering long stories they are, let me tell you;-set customary salutations of the country commence Will once a going about China or Crim Tartary, or those tokens of joy and admiration which so much the Hottentots, and heaven help the poor victim who annoyed me on first landing: the air is darkened has to endure his prolixity; he might better be tied with old hats, shoes, and dead cats; they fly in show-to the tail of a jack-o'-lantern. In one word-Will ers like the arrows of the Parthians. The soldiers, no ways disheartened, like the intrepid followers of Leonidas, march gallantly under their shade. On they push, splash dash, mud or no mud. Down one lane, up another; the martial music resounds

talks like a traveller. Being well acquainted with his character, I was the more alarmed at his inclination to visit a party; since he has often assured me, that he considered it as equivalent to being stuck up for three hours in a steam-engine. I even wondered

how he had received an invitation;-this he soon accounted for. It seems Will, on his last arrival from Canton, had made a present of a case of tea, to a lady for whom he had once entertained a sneaking kindness when at grammar school; and she in return had invited him to come and drink some of it; a cheap way enough of paying off little obligations. I readily acceded to Will's proposition, expecting much entertainment from his eccentric remarks; and as he has been absent some few years, I anticipated his surprise at the splendour and elegance of a modern rout.

"he re

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happy gentleman to stupidity by her charms; you see she holds out the red flag in token of "no quarter." "Then keep me safe out of the sphere of her attractions,” cried Will. "I would not e'en come in contact with her train, lest it should scorch me like the tail of a comet. -But who, I beg of yon, is that amiable youth who is handing along a young lady, and at the same time contemplating his sweet person in a mirror, as he passes?" His name, said I, is BILLY DIMPLE;-he is a universal smiler, and would travel from Dan to Beersheba and smile on every body as he passed. Dimple is a slave to the On calling for Will in the evening, I found him ladies-a hero at tea-parties, and is famous at the full dressed, waiting for me. I contemplated him pirouet and the pigeon-wing; a fiddle-stick is his with absolute dismay. As he still retained a spark idol, and a dance his elysium. "A very pretty of regard for the lady who once reigned in his affec- young gentleman, truly," cried Wizard; tions, he had been at unusual pains in decorating minds me of a cotemporary beau at Hayti. his person and broke upon my sight arrayed in the must know that the magnanimous Dessalines gave true style that prevailed among our beaux some a great ball to his court one fine sultry summer's years ago. His hair was turned up and tufted at the evening; Dessy and me were great cronies;—hand top, frizzled out at the ears, a profusion of powder and glove :-one of the most condescending great puffed over the whole, and a long plaited club swung men I ever knew. Such a display of black and gracefully from shoulder to shoulder, describing a yellow beauties! such a show of Madras handkerpleasing semicircle of powder and pomatum. His chiefs, red beads, cock's-tails and peacock's feaclaret-coloured coat was decorated with a profusion thers!-it was, as here, who should wear the highest of gilt buttons, and reached to his calves. His white top-knot, drag the longest tails, or exhibit the casimere small-clothes were so tight that he seemed greatest variety of combs, colours and gew-gaws. to have grown up in them; and his ponderous legs, In the middle of the rout, when all was buzz, slipwhich are the thickest part of his body, were beau- slop, clack, and perfume, who should enter but tifully clothed in sky-blue silk stockings, once con- TUCKY SQUASH! The yellow beauties blushed blue, sidered so becoming. But above all, he prided him- and the black ones blushed as red as they could, self upon his waistcoat of China silk, which might with pleasure; and there was a universal agitation almost have served a good housewife for a short- of fans; every eye brightened and whitened to see gown; and he boasted that the roses and tulips upon Tucky; for he was the pride of the court, the pink it were the work of Nang Fou, daughter of the great of courtesy, the mirror of fashion, the adoration of Chin-Chin-Fou, who had fallen in love with the all the sable fair ones of Hayti. Such breadth of graces of his person, and sent it to him as a parting nose, such exuberance of lip! his shins had the present; he assured me she was a remarkable beauty, true cucumber curve; his face in dancing shone with sweet obliquity of eyes, and a foot no larger like a kettle; and, provided you kept to windward than the thumb of an alderman;-he then dilated of him in summer, I do not know a sweeter youth most copiously on his silver-sprigged dicky, which in all Hayti than Tucky Squash. When he laughed, he assured me was quite the rage among the dash-there appeared from ear to ear a chevaux-de-frize ing young mandarins of Canton. of teeth, that rivalled the shark's in whiteness;

I hold it an ill-natured office to put any man out he could whistle like a north-wester; play on a of conceit with himself; so, though I would will-three-stringed fiddle like Apollo; and as to dancingly have made a little alteration in my friend ing, no Long Island negro could shuffle you Wizard's picturesque costume, yet I politely complimented him on his rakish appearance.

On entering the room I kept a good look-out on Will, expecting to see him exhibit signs of surprise; but he is one of those knowing fellows who are never surprised at any thing, or at least will never acknowledge it. He took his stand in the middle of the floor, playing with his great steel watch chain; and looking round on the company, the furniture, and the pictures, with the air of a man "who had seen dd finer things in his time;" and to my utter confusion and dismay, I saw him coolly pull out his villainous old japanned tobacco-box, ornamented with a bottle, a pipe, and a scurvy motto, and help himself to a quid in face of all the company.

double-trouble," or "hoe corn and dig potatoes" more scientifically:-in short, he was a second Lothario. And the dusky nymphs of Hayti, one and all, declared him a perpetual Adonis. Tucky walked about, whistling to himself, without regarding any body; and his nonchalance was irresistible."

I found Will had got. neck and heels into one of his travellers' stories; and there is no knowing how far he would have run his parallel between Billy Dimple and Tucky Squash, had not the music struck up, from an adjoining apartment, and summoned the company to the dance. The sound seemed to have an inspiring effect on honest Will, and he procured the hand of an old acquaintance for a country dance. It happened to be the fashionable one of "the Devil among the tailors," which is so vociferously demanded at every ball and assembly: and many a torn gown, and many an unfortunate toe did rue the dancing of that night; for Will, thundering down the dance like a coach and six, sometimes right, sometimes wrong; now running over half a score of little Frenchmen, and now making sad inroads into ladies' cobweb muslins "And pray who is that stylish figure," said Will, and spangled tails. As every part of Will's body "who blazes away in red, like a volcano, and who partook of the exertion, he shook from his capacious seems wrapped in flames like a fiery dragon?"-head such volumes of powder, that like pious Eneas That, cried I, is Miss LAURELIA DASHAWAY;--she on the first interview with Queen Dido, he might is the highest flash of the ton-has much whim and be said to have been enveloped in a cloud. Nor was more eccentricity, and has reduced many an un- Will's partner an insignificant figure in the scene:

I knew it was all in vain to find fault with a fellow of Will's socratic turn, who is never to be put out of humour with himself; so, after he had given his box its prescriptive rap and returned it to his pocket, I drew him into a corner where he might observe the company without being prominent objects ourselves.

she was a young lady of most voluminous proportions, that quivered at every skip; and being braced up in the fashionable style with whalebone, staytape, and buckram, looked like an apple pudding tied in the middle; or, taking her flaming dress into consideration, like a bed and bolsters rolled up in a suit of red curtains. The dance finished.—I would gladly have taken Will off, but no;-he was now in one of his happy moods, and there was no doing any thing with him. He insisted on my introducing him to Miss SOPHY SPARKLE, a young lady unrivalled for playful wit and innocent vivacity, and who, like a brilliant, adds lustre to the front of fashion. I accordingly presented him to her, and began a conversation in which, I thought, he might take a share; but no such thing. Will took his stand before her, straddling like a Colossus, with his hands in his pockets, and an air of the most profound attention; nor did he pretend to open his lips for some time, until, upon some lively sally of hers, he electrified the whole company with a most intolerable burst of laughter. What was to be done with such an incorrigible fellow?-to add to my distress, the first word he spoke was to tell Miss Sparkle that something she said reminded him of a circumstance that happened to him in China;— and at it he went, in the true traveller style-described the Chinese mode of eating rice with chopsticks;-entered into a long eulogium on the succulent qualities of boiled bird's nests; and I made my escape at the very moment when he was on the point of squatting down on the floor, to show how the little Chinese Joshes sit cross-legged.

TO THE LADIES.

FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT, ESQ.

THOUGH jogging down the hill of life,
Without the comfort of a wife;
And though I ne'er a helpmate chose,
To stock my house and mend my hose;
With care my person to adorn,
And spruce me up on Sunday morn;-
Still do I love the gentle sex,

And still with cares my brain perplex
To keep the fair ones of the age
Unsullied as the spotless page;
All pure, all simple, all refined,
The sweetest solace of mankind.

I hate the loose, insidious jest
To beauty's modest ear addrest,
And hold that frowns should never fail
To check each smooth, but fulsome tale;
But he whose impious pen should dare
Invade the morals of the fair;

To taint that purity divine

Which should each female heart enshrine;
Though soft his vitious strains should swell,
As those which erst from Gabriel fell,
Should yet be held aloft to shame,
And foul dishonour shade his name.
Judge, then, my friends, of my surprise,
The ire that kindled in my eyes,
When I relate, that t'other day
I went a morning-call to pay,

On two young nieces; just come down
To take the polish of the town.
By which I mean no more or less
Than a la Francaise to undress;
To whirl the modest waltz' rounds,
Taught by Duport for snug ten pounds.
To thump and thunder through a song,
Play fortes soft and dolce's strong;
Exhibit loud piano feats,

Caught from that crotchet-hero, Meetz:

To drive the rose-bloom from the face,
And fix the lily in its place;
To doff the white, and in its stead
To bounce about in brazen red.

While in the parlour I delay'd,
Till they their persons had array'd,
A dapper volume caught my eye,
That on the window chanced to lie:
A book's a friend-I always choose
To turn its pages and peruse:—
It proved those poems known to fame
For praising every cyprian dame;-
The bantlings of a dapper youth,
Renown'd for gratitude and truth:
A little pest, hight TOMMY Moore,
Who hopp'd and skipp'd our country o'er;
Who sipp'd our tea and lived on sops,
Revell'd on syllabubs and slops,
And when his brain, of cobweb fine,
Was fuddled with five drops of wine,
Would all his puny loves rehearse,
And many a maid debauch-in verse.
Surprised to meet in open view,
A book of such lascivious hue,
I chid my nieces-but they say,
'Tis all the passion of the day;-
That many a fashionable belle
Will with enraptured accents dwell
On the sweet morceau she has found
In this delicious, curst, compound!

Soft do the tinkling numbers roll,
And lure to vice the unthinking soul;
They tempt by softest sounds away,
They lead entranced the heart astray;
And Satan's doctrine sweetly sing,
As with a seraph's heavenly string.
Such sounds, so good, old Homer sung,
Once warbled from the Syren's tongue;-
Sweet melting tones were heard to pour
Along Ausonia's sun-gilt shore;
Seductive strains in æther float,
And every wild deceitful note
That could the yielding heart assail,
Were wafted on the breathing gale;—

And every gentle accent bland
To tempt Ulysses to their strand.

And can it be this book so base,

Is laid on every window-case?

Oh! fair ones, if you will profane

Those breasts where heaven itself should reign; And throw those pure recesses wide,

Where peace and virtue should reside

To let the holy pile admit

A guest unhallowed and unfit;

Pray, like the frail ones of the night,

Who hide their wanderings from the light,

So let your errors secret be,

And hide, at least, your fault from me:
Seek some by-corner to explore

The smooth, polluted pages o'er:
There drink the insidious poison in,
There slyly nurse your souls for sin:
And while that purity you blight
Which stamps you messengers of light,
And sap those mounds the gods bestow,
To keep you spotless here below;
Still in compassion to our race,
Who joy, not only in the face,
But in that more exalted part,
The sacred temple of the heart;
Oh! hide for ever from our view,
The fatal mischief you pursue:-
Let MEN your praises still exalt,
And none but ANGELS mourn your fault.

No. VI.-FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1807

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

THE Cockloft family, of which I have made such frequent mention, is of great antiquity, if there be any truth in the genealogical tree which hangs up

in my cousin's library. They trace their descent | his boys should be christened after our laureate; from a celebrated Roman knight, cousin to the pro- because the parson of the parish had told her that genitor of his majesty of Britain, who left his native Pindar was the name of a pagan writer, famous for country or occasion of some disgust; and coming his love of boxing-matches, wrestling, and horseinto Wales became a great favourite of prince Ma- racing. To sum up all her qualifications in the doc, and accompanied that famous argonaut in the shortest possible way, Mrs. Cockloft is, in the true voyage which ended in the discovery of this conti- sense of the phrase, a good sort of woman; and I nent. Though a member of the family, I have some- often congratulate my cousin on possessing her. times ventured to doubt the authenticity of this por- The rest of the family consists of Jeremy Cockloft tion of their annals, to the great vexation of cousin the younger, who has already been mentioned, and Christopher who is looked up to as the head of our the two Miss Cocklofts, or rather the young ladies, house; and who, though as orthodox as a bishop, as they have been called by the servants, time out would sooner give up the whole decalogue than lop of mind; not that they are really young, the younger off a single limb of the family tree. From time im- being somewhat on the shady side of thirty, but it memorial, it has been the rule for the Cocklofts to has ever been the custom to call every member of marry one of their own name; and as they always the family young under fifty. In the south-east corbred like rabbits, the family has increased and mul- ner of the house, I hold quiet possession of an oldtiplied like that of Adam and Eve. In truth, their fashioned apartment, where myself and my elbownumber is almost incredible; and you can hardly chair are suffered to amuse ourselves undisturbed, go into any part of the country without starting a save at meal times. This apartment old Cockloft warren of genuine Cocklofts. Every person of the has facetiously denominated cousin Launce's paraleast observation or experience must have observed, dise; and the good old gentleman has two or three that where this practice of marrying cousins and favourite jokes about it, which are served up as regsecond cousins prevails in a family, every member in ularly as the standing family dish of beef-steaks and the course of a few generations becomes queer, hu- onions, which every day maintains its station at the mourous, and original; as much distinguished from foot of the table, in defiance of mutton, poultry, or the common race of mongrels as if he was of a dif- even venison itself. ferent species. This has happened in our family, Though the family is apparently small, yet, like and particularly in that branch of it which Mr. Chris- most old establishments of the kind, it does not want topher Cockloft, or, to do him justice, Mr. Christo- for honorary members. It is the city rendezvous of pher Cockloft, Esq., is the head. Christopher is, in the Cocklofts; and we are continually enlivened by fact, the only married man of the name who resides the company of half a score of uncles, aunts, and in town; his family is small, having lost most of his cousins, in the fortieth remove, from all parts of the children when young, by the excessive care he took country, who profess a wonderful regard for cousin to bring them up like vegetables. This was one of Christopher, and overwhelm every member of his his first whim-whams, and a confounded one it was, household, down to the cook in the kitchen, with as his children might have told, had they not fallen their attentions. We have for three weeks past been victims to this experiment before they could talk. greeted with the company of two worthy old spinHe had got from some quack philosopher or other a sters, who came down from the country to settle a notion that there was a complete analogy between law-suit. They have done little else but retail stories children and plants, and that they ought to be both of their village neighbours, knit stockings, and take reared alike. Accordingly, he sprinkled them every snuff all the time they have been here; the whole morning with water, laid them out in the sun, as he family are bewildered with church-yard tales of did his geraniums; and if the season was remarka-sheeted ghosts, white horses without heads and with bly dry, repeated this wise experiment three or four large goggle eyes in their buttocks; and not one of times of a morning. The consequence was, the the old servants dare budge an inch after dark withpoor little souls died one after the other, except Jer- out a numerous company at his heels. My cousin's emy and his two sisters, who, to be sure, are a trio visitors, however, always return his hospitality with of as odd, runty, mummy-looking originals as ever due gratitude, and now and then remind him of Hogarth fancied in his most happy moments. Mrs. their fraternal regard by a present of a pot of appleCockloft, the larger if not the better half of my sweetmeats or a barrel of sour cider at Christmas. cousin, often remonstrated against this vegetable Jeremy displays himself to great advantage among theory; and even brought the parson of the parish his country relations, who all think him a prodigy; in which my cousin's country house is situated to and often stand astounded, in “ 'gaping wonderher aid, but in vain: Christopher persisted, and ment," at his natural philosophy. He lately frightattributed the failure of his plan to its not having ened a simple old uncle almost out of his wits, by Deen exactly conformed to. As I have mentioned giving it as his opinion that the earth would one day Mrs. Cockloft, I may as well say a little more about be scorched to ashes by the eccentric gambols of the her while I am in the humour. She is a lady of famous comet, so much talked of; and positively aswonderful notability, a warm admirer of shining ma- serted that this world revolved round the sun, and hogany, clean hearths, and her husband; who she that the moon was certainly inhabited. considers the wisest man in the world, bating Will The family mansion bears equal marks of antiqWizard and the parson of our parish; the last of uity with its inhabitants. As the Cocklofts are rewhom is her oracle on all occasions. She goes con-markable for their attachment to every thing that stantly to church every Sunday and Saints-day; and has remained long in the family, they are bigoted toinsists upon it that no man is entitled to ascend a wards their old edifice, and I dare say would sooner pulpit unless he has been ordained by a bishop; nay, have it crumble about their ears than abandon it. so far does she carry her orthodoxy, that all the ar- The consequence is, it has been so patched up and gument in the world will never persuade her that a repaired, that it has become as full of whims and Presbyterian or Baptist, or even a Calvinist, has any oddities as its tenants; requires to be nursed and possible chance of going to heaven. Above every humoured like a gouty old codger of an alderman; thing else, however, she abhors paganism. Can and reminds one of the famous ship in which a cerscarcely refrain from laying violent hands on a pan-tain admiral circumnavigated the globe, which was theon when she meets with it; and was very nigh so patched and timbered, in order to preserve sc going into hysterics when my cousin insisted one of great a curiosity, that at length not a particle of the

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