University of Virginia Library

1. TALES
OF
THE GOOD WOMAN.
BY
A DOUBTFUL GENTLEMAN.

THE YANKEE ROUÉ.

Shirley.

1. CHAPTER I.
THE UNCLE.

Young Calvin Sopus began life with every possible
advantage for rising in the world, for he was
born at the bottom of the wheel. He had no
fortune, and there was therefore every motive
to exert himself; he had no family, and was
therefore not afraid of disgracing it by following
any honest calling. I am not jesting, gentle reader,
when I call these advantages. When thou hast
seen as much of the world as I have, and witnessed
the natural tendency of wealth and honours to
sink, and of lowliness and poverty to rise, when
left to their natural, unrestricted operation, thou
wilt not hesitate to say with me, that to be placed

in a situation where active exertion is necessary
and honest occupation not beneath us, is to be
born under a lucky star. Our hero—or rather
our hero's uncle, had still another great natural
advantage, if any more were necessary. He was
blessed with a numerous race of brothers and sisters,
who in good time made it necessary for the
old ones to turn out of the hive to make way for
the young ones. At the age of ten or eleven, or
somewhere thereabout, he was placed with a
neighbouring farmer, where he worked late and
early—fed hard—slept hard—and had rather a
hard time of it, as the well to do in the world
say of those who are not so well fed, well clothed,
and well lodged as themselves. They are not
aware, poor souls! that labour which blesses
others, blesses the labourer too; and that his very
privations are hallowed as blessings, by the zest
which wholesome occupation gives, to his amusements,
his rest, and his food. Do these foolish
people who pamper themselves into a delusion
of happiness, by pitying the labouring classes,
believe themselves selected from the great mass
of mankind for exclusive enjoyments? Do they
presume to think that Providence while bestowing
upon them riches without labour or desert, hath
entailed on all the rest of mankind the necessity
of labour as a curse? That it hath condemned a
vast majority of the human race to misery in this
life, and a little meager minority to happiness
without any peculiar merit of their own, because
the one is obliged to labour, the other able to live
in idleness? This cannot be. All that ambition
wins, or avarice covets, can neither give or take
away happiness. These are but straws and feathers
for children to tire themselves with running
after. They are the bones that Providence throws
away, and which set the mighty mastiffs of the
earth snarling and fighting evermore.

When Tamerlane the Great, who was lame of
a leg, had conquered, taken prisoner, and overturned
the throne of Bajazet the Great, Emperor
of the Turks, who was blind of an eye, and the
latter was brought before him, he burst into a fit
of laughter. Bajazet reproached him with jesting
at his misfortunes. “No,” replied Tamerlane,
“I was laughing to think what little value Allah
must place upon power, wealth, and dominion,
when he has taken an empire from a man with one
eye to give to another with one leg.”

But what has Calvin Sopus to do with Khans,
Emperors, and Empires, quoth the critical reader.
Be quiet, dear sir, I beseech thee; pray let
me tell my story in my own way if you please.
You don't know but I mean to make Calvin an
Emperor before I have done with him. Stranger
things than that have happened in our time—at
least in fashionable novels.

Calvin remained with the farmer, working like
one of his horses, every day and all day long, except

Sundays, when he went to meeting in a new
linsey woolsey suit of blue and grey mixture. Few
and far between were the incidents that marked his
life during the period between his debut and the age
of sixteen years. One was the purchase of a beaver
hat, which consumed the savings of years; the other
his conversion to Methodism by a ghost which he
saw on his return from a camp-meeting. He was
passing a dark lane with a thick wood on either
side, through which the little beams of moonlight
darted here and there, when he saw something
standing close to the fence. It was as white as
a sheet, and there never was such a thing known
as a black ghost. Had it been black, it would
have been the Devil; but being white, it could be
nothing but a ghost. The old farmer's wife threw
up her eyes and took down her Hymn Book; the
old farmer asked him why he did not speak to it.

“Speak to it!” quoth Calvin, “I had'nt breath
to do any thing but run away.”

So Calvin set it down that it was a ghost, and
as ghosts never appear except for good reasons,
which they always take care to keep to themselves,
he took it for granted that something was going to
happen. The very next night there was a bright
aurora borealis, which set all the old women prophecying
war, pestilence, and famine. Just such
a thing appeared, exactly in the same place, just
before the Revolutionary War. In addition to
this, somebody saw a ball of fire, flashing before

his window, and then there came a great clap of
thunder, and then the windows rattled just as if
there had been a great earthquake, just such a one
as happened before the old French war in Canada.
If the reader has ever lived—has ever had the happiness
I would say, for if my memory don't deceive
me, I was once happy there—if he has ever had
the happiness of living in the country—he must
have learned from his own experience, that the
goddess Rumour was born and brought up in a
country village. The people of crowded cities
are nothing to the idle gossips of a village, for
keeping up a rumour. Neither will he, I think,
have failed to observe that there is much more of
superstitious credulity in the retired shades of life
than in the crowd; not because the people are
more ignorant, but that there is something in the
quiet of the country—the loneliness of the pathways—the
whisperings of the woods, the murmuring
of the waters, the very hum of the insects,
added to the repose, the gravity—the almost sadness
which nature sometimes wears—for even her
smiles are melancholy—there is something in all
this, which disposes the mind to cower under the
imagination—to conjure up visions of possibilities
it nover cherished before—to start at shadows—
quail at a sound—to believe and tremble. I myself
have felt all this a thousand times—although
I confess, old as I am, my reveries were of another
class when I was young. I never entered a
solitude or buried myself in the wicked twilight of
the woods, without directly conjuring up the bright
vision of some reigning fair one, the distant unapproachable
object of my dreams and reveries, in
whose presence I had never dared to do any thing
but look just like a fool. But alone by myself in
a wood, not Demosthenes was more eloquent,
when haranguing the brawling waves with his
mouth full of pebbles. I wish I could remember,
that I might repeat some of my declarations, for
the benefit of the dumb dandies of the day, whose
silence, as I am credibly informed, is much complained
of by the young ladies.

Be this as it may, Calvin waxed very serious after
the sight of the ghost—the mysterious light in the
north—the ball of fire—the clap of thunder, and
the rattling of the windows. The spectre of
death now began to hover before him, in his solitary
walks to and from the fields—his mind was
gradually imbued with gloomy, superstitious ideas
—he became thin, pale, and sad—and his labours
often stood still while he was pondering on his approaching
fate—for it was not long ere he convinced
himself he was ill and going to die. He
continued to attend the meetings which were from
time to time held in the neighbourhood, and was
at length “struck down,” as the phrase is—that is,
he sunk under his weakness of body and fearful
depression of mind, and lay for a while howling
on the floor, in a state half physically, half morally

distracted. He revived after a time, and sunk into
horrors inexpressible; day nor night, nor labour
nor repose, nor prayer nor repentance, nor purposed
amendment, afforded the poor youth relief or respite.
He imagined himself wrestling with Satan, who
was shaking him over the bottomless pit—and—
but my object is not his history, but that of his
nephew. The good farmer sent for a doctor, a
shrewd, observing, experienced old humourist, as
many country doctors are, who felt his pulse, asked
some questions, consulted the head of his loaded
whip, and called Calvin a great blockhead.

“The fellow has got the pulse of a horse, the
nerves of a lion, and the heart of a weasel. He
is as well as I am, and will live at least a hundred
years after you and I are gone.” So saying he
gave Calvin a smart cut with his whip across the
shins, told him to get to work as hard as he could,
and mounting his horse trotted away to his next
patient. Calvin was so delighted to hear that he
was not like to die soon, notwithstanding the
ghost, the light in the north, and the other omens,
that he took the doctor's advice, fell to work
harder than ever, and was soon strong enough to
bid defiance to his old enemy the ghost. He is
not the only example of this sort which has fallen
under my notice. He continued, however, to frequent
Methodist meetings, till he came to town
and grew rich, when he bought a pew in a genteeler
church, there being a gentility in religion

as well as in every thing else. But I must not
take up too much of the reader's attention with
Calvin, and thereby make him the hero of my
story, although in so doing I might plead the example
of Homer, whose real hero is certainly
Hector; or of Milton, who has, unwittingly without
doubt, concentrated his genius upon a personage
who shall be nameless.

About the time that Calvin attained the age of
eighteen, the good farmer with whom he lived,
smitten by the far off and cheap beauties of the
west, sold his house and every thing belonging
thereto, and packed himself away to Ohio, where
he bought half a township, and in process of time
became a patroon. Calvin had a great deal of
industry and very little enterprize. He did not
like to go so far from home; so he determined to
go to the city and seek his fortune. He arrived
there with the product of all his hard earnings
and savings, which was just enough to purchase
a horse and cart, with which he commenced Jehu.
Of his progress from a cartman to a grocer, from
a grocer to a shipping merchant, and thence to a
bold trader to China and the Northwest Coast, we
shall enter into no details. It is sufficient to say,
that by the time he grew too old to enjoy riches,
he was as rich as a broker. Nothing indeed is
more easy than to grow rich. It is only to trust
nobody—to befriend no one—to get every thing,
and save all we get—to stint ourselves and every
body belonging to us—to be the friend of no man,

and have no man for our friend—to heap interest
on interest, cent upon cent—to be mean, miserable,
and despised, for some twenty or thirty
years, and riches will come as sure as disease and
disappointment.

Calvin was now almost sixty years old, and a
bachelor. He had been so busy making money,
that he could not spare time to look out for a wife.
Now it was too late, and his first great disappointment,
after getting his money, was not knowing
what to do with it. There are no people more
anxious for some one to give their money to after
death, than those who give nothing away while
living. He cast about among his relatives, of
whom he had not hitherto taken the least notice,
although there were divers good people in the
Bowery and Pump-street, who boasted of being
related to the rich China merchant, Calvin Sopus,
Esquire, and much good did it do them. At length,
he discovered among the sugar boxes, molasses
hogsheads, and flies of a little corner grocery,
“up town,” a nephew, the son of his eldest sister,
who had married an honest man of the name of
Sheffield, whose mother's name had been Stafford.
Agreeably to the fashion of the times, the eldest
son was called Stafford Sheffield, and a very pretty
name it was, and a very pretty lad was he. Nothing
could equal his happiness, when the old man
took him home, and announced that if he behaved
himself like a man, he would make a man of him.

Rich old men, who have risen from a low state,

generally despise gentlemen with all their might,
yet are always desirous that their sons and heirs
should be gentlemen. I never knew a rich cobbler
or tailor, who was anxious that his son should
follow his trade. There were two good reasons
why Calvin should be a humourist. He was rich
and a bachelor. Now only give an old man plenty
of elbow room, and plenty of money, and ten to
one, he will branch out into rare eccentricities, the
greater in all probability, from their having been
circumscribed in early life by poverty. There
never was such a galley slave as poor Stafford
Sheffield, from the moment he was transplanted
from the shades of Pump-street to the sunshine of
Hudson Square. He envied the cook in the
kitchen, and the chimney sweepers in the street,
for they were all free compared with him. There
was not a moment of his life when he could do as
he liked, and for some years he sustained a species
of tyranny, which hath no name and no parallel in
this world.

The old man had satisfied himself that the best,
nay, the only effectual way of teaching young people
self-denial, which in his opinion, and there he
was right, was the safeguard of all the virtues, was
never to permit them to do as they liked. Accordingly
his practice was to ask the young man, if
he would like to do this, or have that, or go thither;
and if he replied “Yes,” to deny him without ceremony.
In this way, as he one day boasted to a
neighbour, who was complaining of the conduct

of his son—in this way he nipped his inclinations
in the bud, and taught him the virtue of self-denial.
It happened that our hero overheard this disclosure,
and from that time he never wanted for any
thing. “Boy,” would Calvin say “should you like
to go to the play to night” “N-n-o,” would he
answer, drawling and yawning, as if overcome with
listelessness. “Why then, you shall go, you rascal,”
cries Calvin. “What a clever youth is my nephew,”
would he add when he was gone, “he
cares nothing for frolic or amusement. Ah! this
comes of my system of teaching self-denial.” And
he grew to love him so well, for having done so
much honour to his system of self-denial, that
Stafford had never afterwards any occasion to
practice self-denial while the old man lived.

From the period in which Stafford attained the
promise of manhood, attentions such as he had
never received before, flowed in upon his uncle.
The old man was continually invited out to dinners
and parties, and there was hardly a day in
which he did not receive some little present. In
particular, a widow lady, who had nine pretty little
accomplished daughters, who understood the art
of spending according to the most fashionable
canons of the day, almost stuffed him to death
with jellies and blanc-mange. The dæmon of
vanity actually awakened in the heart of the old
man, and he sometimes thought to himself, the
widow certainly had an eye upon him. He was
mistaken, it was on his nephew. Whether it was

gratitude for the jellies bestowed on his thrice
honoured uncle, or the beauty of Miss Angelina's
foot, that won him, I know not—but certain it is,
that before our hero was twenty, he was irrevocably
engaged to the young lady.

Luckily for young heirs, old men cannot live
for ever. One day the enamoured widow sent Calvin
a present of a pine-apple, of which he ate as he
was wont to do of every thing that cost him nothing.
The weather was very hot—and—why should I
dwell on the heart-rending scene—in two short
days Stafford was the disconsolate heir of—nobody
could tell how much. But the widow, who had
caused her son, who was an attorney and moreover
a commissioner for taking affidavits, to make particular
examination, privately assured Miss Angelina,
that it was not far from half a million.
Whereupon the young lady put on her hat, and
shawl, and feathers, and flounces, and flags, and
streamers, sticks, whalebones, combs, pearls,
chains, squares, rounds, three corners, busks, bodices,
scarfs, borders, fans, fardingales, puffs, cuffs,
ruffs, muffs, puzzles, fuzzles, frizzles, frizlets, bandlets,
fillets, crosslets, bracelets armlets, amulets
pendulets, with divers other nameless embellishments,
and went and ran up a bill of two hundred
dollars at the milliners. “We shall have the wedding
before the mourning is over. What's the use
of standing on ceremony with the memory of an
old hunks like Sopus,” quoth the widow. But the
widow reckoned without her host.

2. CHAPTER II.
OUR HERO GOES ABROAD TO FINISH HIS EDUCATION.

There was one part of Calvin's will that pleased
Stafford amazingly. “I give and bequeath the
whole of my estate, real and personal, to my
nephew Stafford Sheffield.” There was another
part that made him laugh outright—“And considering
that he was of age the day before yesterday
and having the fullest confidence in those
lessons of self-denial I have taught him, I hereby
make him my sole executor.” There was another
part that caused him to make wry faces—“Provided
that he assume the name and arms of Sopus.”

“Plague take his name, and his arms too,” quoth
Stafford—“Nobody ever heard of either of them
before. Stafford Sheffield Sopus! Gods what an
anti-climax. I must see whether it is worth my
while to make such a sacrifice.” Accordingly he
took to examining the items and there he encountered
such stocks, such mortgages, such real estates,
that his heart forthwith relented; and he
announced to Miss Angelina that he was in future
to be Mr. Sopus. “Sopus!” screamed she—but
discretion and love stopped what farther she would
have said. That unfortunate young lady, however,

underwent a severe struggle between the
name of Mrs. Sopus and the half a million. Affection
at length carried the day, and she decided
in favour of the half a million.

But it is astonishing what different views of
things people take at different times. It is like
looking through a Claude Lorraine glass, where
sunshine and shade, and twilight succeed each
other by turns. A young gentleman in expectancy,
thinks and sees very differently from a young
gentleman in possession. Besides, Stafford—
away with the vulgar name of Sopus, which we
will not allow our hero to assume until sanctioned
by the legislative authority—Besides, our hero had
no conception of the real wealth of his uncle,
neither was he actually certain of inheriting it
until it fell into his mouth. Had it been fifty, or
even a hundred thousand, he might have brought
himself to bury himself, his talents, and his money,
in the oblivion of this new world. But half a
million! It was impossible for a young man with
half a million, to set himself down quietly at
home, marry and amen! “I must first see the
world, that's settled,” quoth he.

Accordingly one beautiful moonlight evening
he paid Angelina a visit, and the prudent mother
very considerately left the young people together.
“Lovers can't resist the moon,” thought she.
“He'll certainly fix the day this night.” So
thought the young lady—but ladies old and young

are often disappointed. Our hero began—“My
beloved Angelina, suffer me to call you mine, now
that I am about”—here the young lady thought
it was certainly coming—“now that I am about
leaving you for a time, a year perhaps—an age to
those who love like me.”

“Leave me!” exclaimed she, in great surprise.

“Yes, my own Angelina, I am going to make
myself worthy of you and of the happiness to
which I aspire. I am going to see the world and
finish my education, which I am sorry to say has
been greatly neglected.”

“You know best,” answered the gentle Angelina,
“but you had better talk to mamma,” and she
was rising to ring the bell.

“O no, don't, for heaven's sake!” cried friend
Sopus, “I can't bear to have the mysteries of our
love developed. I will write to your mother from
the Hook. Adieu! my best beloved—think of
me, write to me, and never forget me. I go to
return more worthy of thy love.” So saying, he
darted out of the room in an agony of grief.

“What shall I do—what shall I do,” cried Angelina,
as her mother entered the room.

“You'd better make friends with the young
broker again,” answered the discreet mother.

“But perhaps,” cried the daughter, “perhaps
he'll fulfil his vows after he has finished his learning.”

“Pooh, girl, you talk like a simpleton.”

“If I were a widow, I dare say I should know
better,” answered Angelina in a sulky whisper.

Our hero was sorry, very sorry, that he was under
the necessity of going abroad and finishing his
education; but his sorrow diminished with the
distance from home. As he lost sight of the
Highlands of Neversink, the figure of the gentle
Angelina become dim. When he got to the
Banks of Newfoundland, and caught such a plenty
of cod-fish, it became indistinct, and by the time
he got to the English coast, it had almost entirely
disappeared. He came to England with his
pockets full of money, and I advise every body not
to go there without it. They will neither get good
eating nor good manners. He went to a fox chase,
and wonderful to relate, came back pefectly cured of
his love. Accordingly the next morning he despatched
a letter to Angelina, informing her that he had
been at a fox chase, and that the superior transports of
that noble amusement had satisfactorily convinced
him there was something in the world he loved
better than his adored Angelina. This being the
case, as a man of honour, he was bound to release
her from her engagement, which he now did, wishing
she was only a man, that she might unite
with him in the pleasures of fox hunting. Three
weeks after the receipt of this letter, Angelina
married the broker.

3. CHAPTER III.
PROGRESS OF OUR HERO'S EDUCATION.

There was but one drawback upon our hero's
happiness, on his arrival in England, and that was
his name, which he cursed ten times a day. “I
wish I had thought of it in time, and I would have
applied to have Sopus put at the beginning instead
of the end of my name, and then I could
have sunk the old tea merchant. Now it is too
late. But never mind—any name is genteel that is
taken for an estate.” But for all this he sunk the
Sopus, every where but in his banker's books, and
affected the name of Sheffield.

A man—a young man—with little experience
and plenty of money, soon finishes his education
abroad. It generally costs him more money than
time. “But time is money,” quoth poor Richard
—and spending money to save time is therefore
your true philosophy. Sopus had no more philosophy
than a wild-goose—but nature often instinctively
hits the true path of wisdom without a
guide. It was so with our hero. In about two years,
he got through the better half of half a million.
He spent money in equipages—he spent it in
horse races—at Brooke's—at taverns, and in worse
places than either of these. He fancied that his

half a million, was equal to a yearly income of
half a million, and therefore entered the lists of
folly with those who could afford to spend as much
in one year, as he could all his life. No wonder
he got on so fast with his education.

A party was going to Paris, having become
somewhat tired of the English modes of spending
money. There is nothing so tiresome, so sating,
so absolutely sickening and monotonous, as a life
of pleasure. While it incapacitates us for useful
or rational pursuits, it supplies their absence by
listlessness and vacuity. Our hero was tired of England,
notwithstanding he had actually acquired
some pretensions to the character of a Roué, which
of all others is the one most coveted by young men
of spirit, and most adored by young, aye, and old
ladies of ton in England. He had had an affair—
had taken his degree at Doctors Commons, and
had only paid five thousand pounds for destroying
the connubial felicity of a most amiable man,
on the score of having proved that there was
no connubial felicity to destroy. Nothing was
wanting to the consummation of his fame but a
duel. But alas! that was impossible. The injured
party was a clergyman. So our hero was
obliged to content himself with the honours of
gallantry, foregoing those of courage.

Other exploits had contributed to raise his reputation.
He had acted at a private theatre—
made a speech at a meeting of the society for

something or other—figured at a masquerade, and
been introduced to the king. If this is not worth
the half of half a million, I should like to know
what is?

On his way to Dover, our hero looked several
times out at the window of the post-chaise, but
soon fell asleep, and waked only to eat his meals.
“I came to study men and manners—it is not necessary
for my education, that I should study
landscapes and old Gothic trumpery—let painters
and poets look to that.” So he slept like a genuine
tourist, from London to Dover; with the interregnums
aforesaid.

In the steam-boat, he was politely accosted by a
plain, yet dignified old gentleman, who observed
that the boat was neither so elegant nor so swift
as some of those he had seen in America. “Can't
say, indeed,” said our hero, superciliously. “I
beg pardon,” said the old gentleman, “I am an
American, and thought I recognized you as a countryman.”
Friend Sopus was wroth: “What! not
rubbed off the yankee yet?” quoth he. “Am I
right?” asked the old gentleman. “Why—yes,”
said the other, “I was born in New-York—but
really, as I mean to spend the rest of my life”—
he ought to have said his money—“abroad, I have
given up my country. I am no longer an American.”

“Permit me to thank you, in the name of my

countrymen,” said the old gentleman, making him
a low bow, and turning on his heel.

The companions of our hero burst into a loud
laugh.

“What does the man mean?” cried he.

“He means that your countrymen are much
obliged to you.”

“If I thought so, I would—”

“Say nothing more about the matter,” quoth
his friend.

On arriving in Paris, Sopus called on the American
minister, in whose person he recognized the
old gentleman before whom he had abjured his
country. Sopus made his visit as short as possible.

4. CHAPTER IV.
OUR HERO FINISHES HIS EDUCATION AT PARIS.

Having still plenty of money, our hero found no
difficulty in finding ways and means of spending
it. Riches make themselves wings every
where, but no where do they fly away more
pleasantly than in Paris. He got acquainted
with the dancers at the Opera Francois, and
they furnished one wing. He got acquainted with
the beau monde, and they furnished another.
Finally, he got acquainted with some of the gambling
houses, and they added two more. An

American gentleman never suspects foul play in
gambling with gentlemen, for he has no experience
of that sort at home. But there are such
things abroad, even among titled personages. A
baron and a count attached themselves to him particularly,
and what was not a little remarkable,
never played without winning his money, although
they never won before in their lives, and were
especially mortified that this rare turn of fortune
should be at the expense of their particular friend.

Our hero, while administering at the grocery in
Pump-street, had whiled away the tedious intervals
of leisure, by learning to play the fiddle a
little. Transplanted to the genial regions of the
Square, he took a master, and, as every man is
good for something, he discovered an aptitude for
music, and became a capital amateur. For the
last twenty years music has got the better of all
the arts and sciences in Europe. A Prima Donna
reigns more despotically, and gives herself ten
times more airs than a Semiramis; a fashionable
composer, outranks a first rate poet or philosopher;
and a man that can sing one of Rossini's songs,
never wants a supper. Our hero got acquainted
with Rossini, the vainest blockhead of the age, and
gained his confidence to such a degree, that he told
him in private, he had received immense offers
through the British Ambassador, who had been
specially instructed by his government. He
thought, however, he should decline them, lest it

might occasion a war between the two countries.
“And what will the poor Dutchess de—say?”
quoth Rossini, taking a pinch of snuff out of a gold
box set with diamonds, and bearing the picture of
an emperor, which had been given him for composing
“Di tanti palpiti,” an air he had stolen
from the Tyrolese, and spoiled a little.

Sopus was now at the pinnacle. He was introduced
to Mademoiselle Sontag, who sung him a
song which cost him five hundred guineas, in suppers
and tickets for her benefit. He played the
fiddle for her, and she declared every where in
the first circles, that he played like a king.
Now every thing done in the manner of kings, is
perfect in Paris, except among the Liberals. Accordingly,
the Liberals abused, and the Ultras
praised; all Paris was divided into factions, and
Rossini become jealous lest our hero's fiddle should
cut out his piano. A musical war raged for some
time, and produced great discords in the beau
monde.

All this while our hero's money, which after all
is a sine qua non in the fashionable world, was
melting, or rather flying away rapidly. How
could it do otherwise when it had so many wings?
It is astonishing how little difference there is between
a great deal and a little money. Every
thing depends on the owner. If he is a prudent
man, with moderate desires, he has always a plenty
of money; but if, like our hero, he has been properly

initiated into the virtue of self-denial, let
him have boundless wealth, and he will always be
wanting. It is not the money, but the man, makes
the real difference between a competency and
wealth. All other is ideal.

The ultras were delighted with our hero's fiddle,
because he played like a king; and especially because
he was an amateur, and it was charming to
get so expensive an article as music for nothing.
Among every people except barbarians and semi-barbarians,
it is the custom to devote all our attention
to married ladies, leaving the young unmarried
ones to get married as soon as possible. The unenlightened
semi-barbarians of this republic rail
at this as indicating corruption of manners. They
should have heard the sentiments of our hero,
derived from a first rate philosopher, on this subject.
He was accustomed to assert that this fashion
of following married women was founded
in the strictest reason and propriety. In reason,
because a man could not pay particular attention
to a single lady without exciting disreputable
suspicions that he intended to marry her. In propriety,
because every body knew a man could not
well marry a woman who already had a husband,
and therefore nobody could suspect him of such
an intention. It deceived no one and therefore
there was no harm in it. The custom he maintained,
was moreover founded, in the highest possible
respect for the sex, since it furnished the

best evidence of the virtue of the married ladies,
who certainly would not permit such attentions,
unless they felt themselves above all danger. Finally,
it was his opinion that the custom was invaluable
to the interests of the world at large, because
it encouraged marriages, as the only means
of gaining those attentions which are so indispensable
to a fashionable lady.

“But what do the husbands say to all this?”
asked some one.

“Husbands? why what business is it to them?”
replied Sopus.

What a fine thing is travelling, if a man only
knows how to make good use of his opportunities
—and how much he may improve his countrymen,
and more especially his countrywomen when
he comes home!

Friend Sopus finished his education as a roué,
and his estate about the same time. The count
and the baron never had such a run of luck before,
and fortune now seemed to make them ample
amends for all her former frowns. But a man
can't sleep forever, and all at once it occurred to
our hero that this unceasing run of the count and
baron was somewhat singular. He determined to
watch them, but he might as well have let it
alone; for they would not have completely finished
him in a month or two perhaps, if they had not
perceived with the quick instinct of guilt, that he
began to be a little suspicious of his friends.

Taking advantage of one of those tides on which
the affairs of men float to success or ruin, when
our hero was flushed with wine, and with a billet
from a dutchess who was a grandmother—ergo—a
perfect Ninon, they assailed him with the oft practised
and oft detected arts of a gambler, and completed
his ruin in a single night, at a single sitting.
They left him, as poor as old Sopus when he began
the world with his horse and cart.

Our hero knew enough of the world, to know
that the less the world knows of a man's wants,
the better is he likely to be treated. He therefore
said nothing about his being a ruined man.
But murder will out, and so will poverty, either at
the elbows or somewhere else. There is a pestilent
servility commonly attendant upon it, that
never fails to betray it to the eyes of experience.
I never see a person that has treated me as a common
acquaintance, or perhaps neglected me entirely
for years, grow all at once very attentive,
in calling and leaving cards, but I begin to suspect
the rogue is going down hill—and, alas! for
human nature—my suspicions are generally realized
in the end. From being impudent, or rather
from possessing that open self-possession, and
happy confidence, which attends a man conscious
of wealth, and sure of a welcome reception, our
hero dwindled all at once into a mighty modest
gentleman, and sneaked into a drawing room as
quietly as a cat. Hereupon the bon ton began

to smell a rat. Nothing but poverty, thought the
wiser ones, can bring a fashionable roué to this
pass. The suspicion was verified not long after, in
his making a demonstration upon the purse of one
of his best friends—a man who delighted in his
music beyond measure so long as it cost him nothing.
But though he loved music, he loved his
money still better, and came off triumphantly,
with an apology and a quick step.

Our hero became melancholy and thoughtful.
Nay, he moralized, and railed at the ingratitude
and bad taste of the Parisians, who would give
every thing but money for a song. When a man
is unhappy abroad, ten to one, but he begins to
think of “home, sweet home.” I heard three chimney
sweeps singing that charming song in the snow
the other day; so the sentiment must be universal.
Our hero first thought—then sighed—then
pined for home. Finally, he came to the resolution
of once more visiting his dear native country, and
marrying Angelina—for he had not heard of the
inconstancy of that faithless woman. “I will
teach them,” quoth he, “to estimate properly the
value of a fiddler—the delights of the opera, and the
opera dancers—I will refine, enlighten, and civilize
my semi-barbarous countrymen, who don't
know the exquisite propriety of courting the married,
and neglecting the single ladies, except the
latter are rich; and my more than semi-barbarous
countrywomen, who are as skittish as wild colts, a

sure sign of ill breeding. I will teach the young
gentlemen the proper value of whiskers—the
young ladies the importance of rouge—the married
women to flirt, and the married men to shut
their eyes. In short, I will be the Solon of the
fashionable world. The ladies will have me at
their parties—the citizens will give me dinners—
the single ladies will set their caps at me, and their
mammas will encourage them, so long as they remain
ignorant of the mortality of old Sopus' money
bags—and that I shall take care they shall not
soon know. I'll marry an heiress—I'll gallant the
married ladies—I'll”—But where is the money
to clear you out of Paris, and pay your passage
across the seas—whispered that ill natured rascal,
matter of fact.

He cast about among his dear friends. He
went to the count and the baron, and stated his
case frankly. The count and the baron had only
won a couple of hundred thousands, and they
generously lent him ten thousand francs. “You
may depend on my remitting you the money on
my arrival.” “My dear friend, say no more—the
money is yours.” “What a couple of generous
fellows are the count and the baron,” quoth Sopus.
And having finished his education, he embarked
for the new world.

5. CHAPTER V.
OUR HERO RETURNS TO HIS NATIVE CITY.

Rumour had wafted the fame of Sopus to the
uttermost ends of the city, even into the farthest
parts of Pump-street. It was reported by divers
supercargoes and sea captains, who had been to
London and Paris, that he moved in the highest
circles—that he had lost a thousand guineas to the
Duke of York, on a race—dined with the Duke
of Sussex—had his health drank at a sheep shearing,
at Holkham—and danced a minuet at Almacks
with a dutchess, of three tails. These were
his English glories. At Paris he was in the first
circles too—supped with the Sontag—was admitted
behind the scenes at the grand opera—and
played duetts with the Grandissimo Rossini. The
very paving stones of the happy city, pricked up
their ears, when our hero first set foot upon them;
the fashionable world received him with open
arms; the young ladies looked up to him as a
glorious conquest—the young gentlemen studied
him as a model; the mothers took every opportunity
of telling him how much he was admired by
their daughters; and the rich brokers hailed him
as an accession of specie, or a rise in bank stock.

But they did not know he was only worth five
thousand franks in the world. “What a wonderful
improvement,” cried Mrs Cridler, who had
never seen him before in her life—“What an
air—O, there is nothing like travelling,” cried Mrs.
Crawbuck—“What a head, a perfect Appleo,”
cried Mrs. Smirk—And “Heavens! what a pair
of whiskers!” cried Mrs. Rosencrantz—at a small
party given in honour of our hero's arrival.

“I wonder if they are natural,” cried a young
lady of great inexperience, being just from the
Springs, after six weeks absence from town.

“O certainly,” answered Heartwell, a young
fellow of whom the reader will hear more anon,
“certainly, it is a revival of an old fashion, with a
little alteration. Then the swallows built in old
men's beards, now they prefer young ones—that's
all, madam.”

“La!” cried the inexperienced young lady,
“you don't say so?” a question not to be answered;
so Heartwell strolled away in search of farther
food for his satire. He was one of those men who
can say what they please. What a glorious privilege!
It is better than being an English bishop!

Sopus—unhappy name to pollute our high bred
pages—Sopus, after he had been in town about a
fortnight, thought he would go and see Miss Angelina.
It was rather an impudent thing, but nothing
for a man who had finished his education
abroad. He knocked at the door of the widow,

and asked for the young lady. She was married
and had six children! “Base woman!” exclaimed
our hero to himself, “I'll go and reproach her
for her falsehood. It is true I resigned her when I
went abroad, but how could she tell whether I
would not have claimed her when I came home.
But these women have no patience.” He went
according to the direction given him, and found
the house where his mistress resided, large and
splendid. The broker had got rich, heaven knows
how, it is not my business. “Faith,” said Sopus,
“the lady is not without excuse.” He rung, and
was admitted. The lady of the house came forward
without knowing to whom, as we don't announce
names here. She was as fat and as ugly
as—there is no comparison that will do her justice.
Sopus was struck into a cold shiver at the
precipice he had escaped, and finding the lady did
not immediately recollect him, made a low bow,
saying he had unfortunately mistaken the house,
and retreated with vast precipitation. “I forgive
her,” said he, “for not waiting for me;” and Angelina
told every body of the strange man with
great whiskers, that had called to see her by mistake.

Our hero notwithstanding the numerous invitations
he received, and the life of pleasure he led,
felt himself frequently at a loss for excitement.
Excitement! that is as necessary to people that
have nothing to do as air is to animated nature.

It is in search of excitement, that men plunge into
vices, and women into follies if not crimes.
Excitement is the will o' the wisp, that leads to a
thousand paths of misery and repentance; that
like jealousy increases by what it feeds on, and
finally from gentle impulses, proceeds to excesses
that mar the ends of our existence, and end in
irretrievable misery and disgrace. “When I hear
young ladies talk as they do about wanting excitement,”
said Heartwell one day to me, “I figure to
myself a being sated with all the rational delights
of the world, wasted by indolence—weakened by
dissipation—pampering her imagination with dangerous
delusions, and sighing for fleeting pleasures
either beyond her reach or if within it, fatal
in the enjoyment.” So said Heartwell, but he
was sometimes a most intolerable proser.

When men lose their taste for innocent amusements
and rational pleasures, if they are not restrained
either by conscience, or by want of means
and opportunity, they begin to seek those that are
neither one nor the other. A life of pleasure is
therefore, too often a life of progressive deterioration.
He who is tired of the company of pure
and innocent females, sinks too often down to the
society of those who are not so. He to whom the
gentle smiles of young unsuspecting preference,
the speaking eye full of innocent yet expressive
meanings, has become incapable of making his
heart throb, and his imagination dance, will most

likely seek these excitements in tumultuous revelry,
or lascivious debaucheries. He, in short, who has
properly completed his education abroad, cannot
possibly live without the excitement of something a
little piquant in morals, a little spice of foreign seasoning,
in short he will require the excitement of
something either unattainable, or attainable only
at the price of some little delicious fashionable
wickedness such as is quite compatible with the
character of a gentleman. It was so with our
hero—to him fruit was of no value unless it was
forbidden fruit. He would not have picked up a
pippin on the highway, but he was ready to risk
his neck in climbing after a crab apple. He pined
for two things especially. A single lady with
plenty of money for a wife; a married one with
plenty of beauty for a friend. To these objects
he was resolved to devote himself. In the mean
time, he made acquaintance with several fashionable
young men of fortune about town, whom he
tried all he could to enlighten in the ways of the
old world. Among the rest he became acquainted
with Heartwell, a youth of about seven-and-twenty,
tall, handsome, well born, well brought up, and
well educated. Heartwell had been abroad too,
but he brought home something besides vices and
follies. He brought home a diminished admiration
of Europe, and an increased admiration of
his own country. Simple, yet dignified high bred
manners, a simple taste in dress, a fine, open, manly
heart, and not whiskers enough for a humming
bird to build his nest in. He was in the main,
good natured and tolerant of foibles, but withal
this, there was a vein of sarcastic humour about
him, that some people who dreaded it, called ill-nature.

6. CHAPTER VI.
ROUÉISM AND THE FINE ARTS.

Our hero had brought home with him a thorough
contempt for his own country. Ignorant himself
of literature, and the first rudiments of the fine arts,
still he fancied that having been abroad, he must of
necessity be highly accomplished both in one and
the other. He had never read any thing but the
lowest periodicals in foreign literature: such as
Blackwood's Magazine, and La Belle Assemblee,
and from these had learned all the self-sufficient
arrogance for which they are so peculiarly distinguished.
Without knowing what his countrymen
had done, or being able to judge of what they
were capable of doing, he adopted the slang of
those who knew as little as himself. He pronounced
them destitute of genius, devoid of taste,
and ignorant of all the refinements of civilization.
It is a common foible with my countrymen abroad,

basely to surrender their country to the scoffs of
witlings, and to imagine they exempt themselves
from the general condemnation, by joining in the
sneer or the laugh.

Our country affords but few resources for idle
men. They are not yet sufficiently numerous and
rich to form a separate caste, and afford themselves
the resources of a perpetual succession of
amusements. Sopus was soon at a loss what to
do with himself, for he could not be always playing
the fiddle, or devoting himself to the married
ladies. He sometimes found them actually busy;
sometimes not fit to be seen; and sometimes,
though of course very rarely, he found them out.
What, however, most annoyed him, was their condign
ignorance of fashionable life abroad, in supposing
that his visits were either to their husbands
or their daughters. One of them in particular,
came nigh to causing his utter annihilation. He
had paid her most obsequious homage at all places
where he happened to meet her, and from the
smiles and simperings with which it was received,
had already began to cherish hopes that his person
and accomplishments would prove irresistible.

One delicious morning in the month of June,
when the purity of the air, and the luxurious
blandness of the weather reminded him of Italy,
he called upon the lady, at an hour when he knew
the husband was absent. He found her in the
graceful undress of a matron, sitting on a rich

ottoman of pale yellow silk. The curtains of the
windows were of a pink colour, and as the sun
shone upon them, threw a rich tint, and delicious
glow upon the face, the arms, and the neck of the
beautiful wife. Sopus mistook it for a blush, and
at that moment determined to make his declaration.
The lady had been mending a silk stocking.
He took it up, and it afforded him a theme for
some very pretty little sly hints and innuendoes,
which a truly modest woman never understands.
Our hero's experience had made him estimate all
women by the same standard. I must speak plainer,
thought he, and allow her at least the honour of
a summons before she surrenders.

He dropped on his knee, and exclaimed—

“Madam, I am the most miserable of men!”

“I am sorry for it, Mr. Sopus,” replied the lady,
taking up a stitch.

“You pity me then, angel of a woman?”

“If you are miserable, I certainly do.”

“And pity is akin to love.”

“So they say,” replied the lady, quietly.

“But will you not permit me to love—to hope
—to be happy?”

“Ask my daughter.”

Zounds! thought Sopus, what a barbarous
country, where the mothers ask the consent of
the daughters, instead of the daughters the mothers.

“Your daughter, madam?”

“Yes; I never mean to give my daughter away
without her own consent. I'll send her to you,”
and the good matron took the silk stocking, and
quietly walked out of the room.

Friend Sopus was in a dilemma. The daughter
was a fine, intelligent, well-bred girl, much admired
by Heartwell; but her father was a hale,
hearty, middle aged man, and though rich, might
not die in half a century. “These fellows,” quoth
our hero, “nine times in ten, outlive their heirs—
but mum.” The young lady entered, curtsied, I
mean bowed, and sat down on the sofa, with as
little emotion as if the room had been empty.
These American women have no more sensibility
and warmth than a cucumber, quoth our hero.
At length the young lady broke silence.

“My mother mentioned you had something
particular to communicate, Mr. Sopus,” said
she, while a little shade of a smile passed over
her face, and settled in the corner of her eye,
as she pronounced his name. Ah! that cursed
name, thought he, I shall never prosper under it;
and now the fortune is gone, I wish the name
were gone with it.

“Madam,” said he, and though he had finished
his education abroad, he actually felt a little awkward,
“do you mean to go to the fancy ball to-night?”

The young lady laughed. “I believe I shall.”

“Well then—hem—ha—may I have the superlative

pleasure of dancing the first cotillion with
you?”

“Certainly, Mr. Sopus,” and again that wicked
laugh lurked in the corner of her eye.

Sopus made a profound bow, and so did the
lady, not being able to curtesy, on account of the
Cantelos—and thus they parted.

What a barbarous country! thought our hero,
where a married woman don't know whether you
are making love to herself or her daughter.

“Well, Julia,” said the mother, “are you engaged?”

“To dance the first cotillion,” said Julia; and
she threw herself on the sofa, and laughed till she
got a great pain in her side.

Coming out of the house, he encountered Heartwell,
who was passing up the street.

“So,” said he, “you've been paying your morning
devoirs to Miss Wingate, a fine girl.”

“Delightful,” answered the other, and fell to
praising her to the skies.

Heartwell paused, and looked a little serious;
but suddenly resuming his wonted free and spirited
manner, he proposed to take Sopus to the
Academy of Arts, to see a collection of original
paintings, by the most celebrated masters of the
Italian and Flemish schools, exhibiting there.

“An Academy of Arts!” quoth Sopus, “Pooh,
what can you have worth seeing there? But
come, any thing to kill time.”

“Ah!” cried he, as they entered the exhibition
room, and saw the very worst collection ever imposed
upon the good people of the city, labelled
with the names of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Domenichino,
Salvator and the Carracci. “Ah!
really now, this is something like; I declare this
really does honour to the country. It reminds me
of the gallery at Florence. Why the names are
the very same.” Whereupon he out with his glass
after the manner of travelled men, and fixing himself
opposite to an immeasurable daub, full of
green lions and brown trees, labelled Sal. Rosa,
began to be quite enthusiastic. “What expression
in the trees! What grace in the very rocks!
What dignity in the lions! Any body could tell
they were the kings of the beasts! There is nobody
after all equal to Sally Rosa, for persuasive
grace of attitude, softness of expression, and felicity
of groping,” as he was pleased to call it—“I
knew her in Florence. She was a most elegant
woman.”

Heartwell stuffed the whole catalogue into his
mouth, and walked away at a quick step. He
however returned in a few moments.

“You are right,” said he, “Miss Sally was particularly
remarkable for all these characteristics.
I see you are a connoiseur.

“A piece of a one,” answered he, pulling up
his stock, and adjusting his striped gingham collar.

“But my dear Heartwell, never again call
a foreign lady Miss or Mistress. It is Madame or
Signora Sally Rosa.”

“I shall bear it in mind,” said the other.

After spending some time in pointing out the
various excellencies of this rare collection of originals,
by the great Italian and Flemish masters,
in which Sopus displayed equal taste and accuracy,
he was carried into the apartment where the
statuary and busts are deposited.

“What in the name of all that is monstrous and
vulgar, have we got here?” cried he, stopping
opposite the Laocoon.”

“'Tis the famous Laocoon,” said Heartwell.

“La—La—ocoon,” said Sopus, “who is it by?”

“The name of the artist is somewhat doubtful.
It is supposed to be a work of great antiquity.”

“Yes any body can see it must have been done
in the infancy of the arts. The artist did well to
keep his name secret. But who is this tall, long-spliced,
sprawling fellow, standing on one leg?”

“That is the Apollo Belvidere. You must have
seen it before.”

“O, aye—I think I do recollect something of a
wooden statue, stuck up at the Belvidere House,
where my uncle's club used to meet. I suppose
they call it the Apollo Belvidere on that account.
Can you tell me who carved it?”

“No, I regret to say that I have forgot it,” replied

Heartwell, again having recourse to the system of
gagging.

“No matter,” said the other; “It is not worth
remembering. Let us go back, I want to take
another look at the Sally—or as these vulgarians
call her, Sal.”

Coming out of the Academy through the park,
Heartwell said something about the City Hall,
which set Sopus retailing the cant he had learned
from the foreign periodicals.

“I've seen a handsomer stable than that, in
England,” said he. “Do you remember Lord
Darlington's stables?”

“No,” said Heartwell, “I confess I did not pay
any particular attention to stables.”

“No!” said the other in astonishment. “Were
you never at Tattersall's?”

“Never.”

“Why what the d—l did you travel for?”

“To see the world,” replied Heartwell.

“And where could you see it better than at Tattersall's?”

“Why, as far as grooms, jockies, black legs,
and sporting heroes go to the formation of a world.
I don't know a better place. But I had no ambition
to figure in such society.”

“No!” answered the other, with a look of wonder.
“But did you ever see Carlton House?”

“I did, and thought it a disgrace to the nation
and its king.”

“What, when it was lighted up with gas
lamps?”

“Even when it was lighted up with gas lamps.”

“But what think you of Windsor Castle. Is
not that a palace worthy of a king?”

“Certainly; but that is a building of another
age, and even the bad taste of the present has
not been able to spoil it altogether. Indeed I
may say of England, and of all Europe in fact,
that so far as my experience goes, there is no building
erected within the last two hundred years,
that can claim the rank of a model. All the most
perfect specimens of architecture, are of a date
anterior to the settlement of this country, and our
people are no more to be reproached for a bad
taste in architecture, than those nations which
have not any more than ourselves, produced master
pieces within that period. The cathedrals
which comprise all the treasures of architecture in
England, and nearly all of later origin in Europe,
are without exception comparatively ancient.
They belong to other times; they are the proper
boast of our ancestors, and as we are equally the
descendants of the different nations of Europe,
with the present race of Europeans, we have as
fair a right to plume ourselves upon the triumphs
of former ages It is so with painting, sculpture
and poetry. The highest honours in all these, belong
to ages, anterior to our existence as a separate
nation. The modern Greeks might as well

boast of their Homer, as the modern English of
their Shakspeare and Milton, who were as much
superior to their Byrons and their Moores, as Homer
is to a modern Greek rhymer. The truth is,
and I challenge any man of taste to deny it,
that the two Banks in Philadelphia, the Little
Phœnix of New-York, and the Capitol at Washington,
are in their way, more perfect specimens,
approaching nearer to the most perfect remains
of Greece, than any buildings erected in England
or on the continent of Europe within the same
period.”

Heartwell, who all this time had been looking
at the City Hall, turned to see what effect his harangue
had produced upon the roué, and found
him busily employed in jerking pebbles at a tree,
a little way off. “I'll bet you ten, I hit it three
times out of five,” quoth he.

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE ADVENTURES OF THE ROUÉ.

Our hero soon after his return from abroad, had
made some inquiries about his relatives in the
Bowery and Pump-street; but he did not find
their society worthy cultivating. They had little
money, and plenty of heirs; so he cut their acquaintance.

It was in one of these pious pilgrimages
to the land of his forefathers, that he
caught sight of a very pretty woman, who was
standing in the doorway of a neat, two story brick
house, with a brass knocker of most intolerable
lustre. There was an air of sprightly vivacity
about her, and something of a coquettish cast of
the eye, that attracted his attention. He looked
at her, and she looked at him; he smiled, and so
did she. Our hero was going to walk up the
steps, when she ran in and shut the door in his
face. He however saw her looking out at the
window at him as he passed down the street. On
making inquiry, he found the lady was the wife of
a rich butcher; that she was reckoned a very gay
lady, and delighted in walking up and down
Broadway. Sopus was a handsome man, at least
in his own opinion. He had a short neck, spindle
legs, and one shoulder was a little higher than the
other. But a high, stiff cravat, wide pantaloons,
and a little of the tailor's handy work, disguised
these trifling defects. It was a blessed thing the
invention of loose trowsers for a ball dress. Before
that, a man could only disguise his legs in an
undress; now it is no matter whether he has any
legs at all. But his whiskers were what he prided
himself upon most especially.

The lady with the mischievous laughing eye, ran
strangely in the head of our hero. The next day, the
next, and the next, he promenaded Pump-street, and

never failed to find her at the window, where, it
was his firm opinion, she stationed herself on purpose
to see him. He determined to exhibit a
touch of the roué. He pondered on the best way
of making his approaches, whether by letter or in
person, and decided upon the former, remembering
how the worthy Mrs. Wingate had mistaken
his declaration on a former occasion. Accordingly
he wrote her a letter, of which I regret
there is no copy extant, the butcher's lady having
used it to curl her hair, after showing it to her
husband. The slayer of oxen was at first exceedingly
wroth, and talked about using his cleaver;
but being rather a good natured man for a butcher,
he passed it off with a laugh, and agreed that
they would have a little sport with our roué.

The letter was accordingly answered in a style
sufficiently encouraging, and was replied to by
another, in which our hero ardently solicited an
interview. After a proper delay, an answer was
received, saying that if he would walk out to
Corlaer's Hook, at about one in the morning, and
stand under a certain tree, she would meet him
without fail, as her husband was going into the
country to buy cattle. Our hero thought this rather
a curious place for the month of December,
but considering that a faint heart never won a fair
lady, he determined not to fail. Accordingly,
when the appointed time arrived, Sopus put on
two flannel waistcoats, two pair of drawers, two

pair of stockings, and a pair of India rubber shoes
and departed from his lodgings about twelve
o'clock. It was a bitter cold night, as well as
dark and gloomy; no lights twinkled from the
shops in Chatham Row, save here and there the
gorgeous emanations from an apothecary's window.
The gas was out, and the good people
snug in bed. Encumbered as he was with clothes,
his progress was rather slow, and the distant
church clock struck one just as he arrived at the
great elm tree, which whilome waved its broad
branches in Cannon' garden.

Gradually the night became dark as pitch, and
a profound silence reigned far and near, interrupted
only by the barking of curs, those pestilent disturbers
of the night, who seem to envy the slumbers
of their betters, and do all they can to mar
them. The keen north-easter, cut its way into
his very marrow, and made his teeth chatter, and
his knees knock against each other. He shrunk
close to the lee side of the tree, and devoutly
wished himself under six blankets at home. After
waiting about half an hour, during which he was
gradually turning to stone, he heard distant footsteps
of horses approaching, and the sound of
carriage wheels. “Thank fortune!” thought he,
“she is coming in a carriage.” The carriage approached,
and either from accident, the darkness,
or some other cause, halted directly opposite to
where he stood. Sopus started forward, and was

proceeding to open the door, when he was arrested
by a violent scream from within. “Thieves!
robbers! murder!” cried a shrill female voice.
“Hush!—its me—its me,” whispered Sopus.
“Thieves! robbers! murder!” shouted the voice
louder than ever, while the coachman, being I
suppose actually congealed with frost and fear,
never thought of lashing his horses forward. A
watchman at a distance, waked out of a deep
sleep, and knocked three times with his cudgel on
the curb stone. Our hero knew the meaning of
that awful sound from sad experience, and at
length perceiving there must be some mistake in
the business, gathered himself together, and ran
away as fast as his multiplicity of clothes would
permit. The watchmen came up, and finding
him gone, followed the sound of his retreating
footsteps over the frozen pavement, and coming
up with our hero knocked him down, ordering him
at the same time to stand still. Luckily, he was
so well fortified with clothing, that the blow did
him little harm. Our hero was taken from hence to
the watch-house, and from thence to the police,
where he was examined, and behaved like a man
of the strictest honour. He determined not to
betray his mistress, and accordingly his story was
so lame, and ill put together, that the justice was
on the point of committing him, previous to which
he ordered a search of his person. Finding no
weapons of offence, and seeing how he was dressed,
his worship sagely concluded that no man in
his senses would go out to rob on the highway
without weapons, and in such a multiplicity of
garments; he ordered his discharge, and contented
himself with a caution against stopping coaches
after midnight. The next day a facetious reporter
to a newspaper, published the whole matter,
with the usual exaggerations; but being a
discreet man, he did not mention names. He
only gave the initials, and described our hero so
accurately that every body knew who was meant.
He underwent the usual ordeal of quizzing; but
kept his secret like a true man, only giving certain
shrewd hints which nobody could misunderstand.

The next day he received a note, left by the
butcher's boy as he stopt at his lodgings to deliver
some beef, in which the lady deeply lamented the
disappointment she had been under the necessity
of inflicting upon him. Her husband had been
taken ill, and was now confined to his bed. Now
therefore was the opportunity for them to meet
nearer at home. The note then proceeded to state
that, precisely at nine in the evening, she would
be in the summer house at the back of her garden,
where she would expect him. She then proceeded
to give particular directions about climbing
the wall, opening the door, and finding his
way in the dark. The writer concluded, by exacting
the pledge of his honour that he would behave
discreetly and like a gentleman. Our hero

that evening dressed himself in his best; curled
his hair, perfumed his whiskers, and sprinkled his
handkerchief with otto of roses. At the appointed
hour he stood at the garden wall—luckily there
were no stars to tell tales, and the babbling moon
was shining on some other stealing lover, in some
other hemisphere.

The hour struck nine. Our hero climbed the
wall, descended safely, and proceeded towards
the summer house, the door of which being ajar,
he cautiously entered. It was dark as pitch. He
advanced a few steps when his foot slipt and he
fell sprawling on the floor, which seemed wet and
slippery. “Where are you my beloved,” whispered
he as he rose. “Here,” replied a voice in
tones sweeter than the zephyr. Sopus imagined
he saw the shadowy figure of his mistress approaching,
and precipitated himself towards it
with all the ardour of high wrought expectation.
He did not clasp a shadow. At that blissful moment,
a hundred lights seemed to blaze spontaneously
on all sides, and the astonished roué, discovered
to his utter dismay that he was embracing
the dead body—not of his mistress, but of an illustrious
porker, which had that very day gained
a premium for being the fattest in the market.
Ten butcher's boys with the butcher at their head,
were now standing about him with candles in their
hands, and the butcher's dog held fast to the skirts
of his coat. Sopus recoiled with horror from

the embraces of the amorous swine, and had a
genuine roué ever been ashamed of himself, our
hero had been the man.

After enjoying his disastrous plight for some
time, the butcher called off his dog, and addressed
our hero as follows: “Young man, I had intended
to make these lads give thee a hearty flogging,
but you cut such a pretty figure, and have been
so well punished already, that I will let you off
this time. But take care how you write any more
letters—my wife has shown me all as she received
them, and she herself planned this scheme. It is
lucky she did, for had I found it out myself, I
would have broken every bone in your body. Go
now about your business.”

Our hero went home disconsolate, and when he
saw himself in his mirror, came near to running
stark mad. He had been inveigled into a slaughter
house, the floor of which was purposely
flooded with the blood of bulls and sheep. His
whole figure was bloody—his hands reeking with
gore, and his face having come in contact with
the snout of the prize piggy, was most gloriously
incardined. He threw off his clothes and went to
bed in despair. The next morning the chamber
maid fell into fits at the sight of his clothes, and
it is clear that if Captain Morgan had been
missing at that time, Sopus would certainly have
been taken up for a free mason.

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE FANCY BALL AT THE CITY ASSEMBLY ROOM.

The butcher and his wife, not belonging as yet
to good society, not having removed to a fashionable
part of the town, the story of the Pump-street
amour, did not come to the ears of the beau
monde. The laugh was confined to the inglorious
regions of the Bowery, and Sopus soon forgot his
bloody disasters. He continued, as before, a star
in the milky-way of fashion, and though his five
thousand francs had long since melted into thin
air, he did not want money for his necessary occasions.
A man who has finished his education
abroad, in the proper schools, knows how to economize,
as well as to spend. Our hero hired
lodgings in a cheap little cross street, where he
boiled his own kettle of a morning, spunged for
an invitation to dinner, and failing of that, resorted
to a cheap ordinary, and took his tea with the
ladies. To save his friends trouble, he had his
cards left at a fashionable hotel, by arrangement
with the bar keeper, where he was never at home
by any accident. As to keeping himself in spending
money, a man who had lost a couple of hundred
thousands to such clever fellows as the count

and the baron, could hardly fail of winning, now
and then, at cards and dice. He had paid enough
in all conscience for his experience. I do not say
that he played foully; but he had studied chances,
runs of luck, runs of the cards, and above all, he
had studied character and faces, till he had reduced
it almost to a certainty that he could, in the end,
make something out of other people's inexperience.
By choosing his company, and playing his cards
well, he accordingly managed to secure to himself
an honourable independence from day to day.

In the mean time the whole town was talking
about the fancy ball to be given at the Assembly
Room, and the young ladies studying costumes,
till one or two of them actually lost their wits in
the perplexity of choosing a character. It was
reported that one lady changed her mind twenty-four
times in one day, but the number was probably
exaggerated.

“For my part,” said Miss Macfaddle to Miss
Maccubbin, “I mean to go as a milkmaid.”

“Charming!” cried Miss Maccubbin, “your
skin is as white as milk, and you'll look beautiful.”

“But what do you mean to go in?” asked Miss
Macfaddle

“Why, I am balancing between a Mary queen
of Scots, and a Virgin of the Sun. Mamma is for
the queen, but I prefer the virgin, if papa will only
give me a real gold sun; I'm determined not to
be put off with a gilt one. O, here comes Miss

Fitzpoisson, to talk us to death of what she can't
and what she can afford. She always looks like a
dowdy, in that everlasting pink gauze. But, poor
thing, I suppose she can't afford any better.”

Miss Fitzpoisson now entered with Heartwell,
and the conversation received a fresh impulse.

“Pray how are you going, Miss Fitzpoisson?”
asked Miss Macfaddle.

“Why, at first, I thought of going as a Spanish
lady, but my mamma thought the hat and feathers
would cost too much. Then I thought of going
as a sultana, but papa insisted on my appearing
in the character of a Christian woman. Then I
thought of wearing my grandmother's wedding
dress, but brother George, told me there was no
occasion to make myself look uglier than I was.
Then I thought of a Gipsy, but brother Tom said
I looked too much like a Gipsy already. Then
I thought of a Swiss girl, but brother Frank told
me the less of my ancles I showed the better.
And then, and then, I determined not to go at all.”

Bravo, thought Heartwell, a member of congress
could not have made a better speech about nothing,
or come to a more logical conclusion.

“But have you heard,” said Miss Fitzpoisson—

“What? what?” asked the ladies all at once.

“Why, they say Mrs. widow Elevenstone is going
as Zephyr, and her everlasting beau, Mr. Crickback,
as Cupid. It will be capital, for you know she is

so fat she can hardly walk, and he so lean he can
scarcely stand.”

“They had better personate Pharaoh's dream,”
said Heartwell. “She seven years of plenty, he
seven years of famine.”

“Lord,” said Miss Macfaddle, “how you talk.
How could they dress like ears of corn.”

“Why in green silk, and satin hair, and a sheaf
of corn under each arm.”

“Well, I declare, that would be very pretty,”
said Miss Maccubbin, “but what character do you
mean to go in?”

“O, I mean to go as Mount ætna.”

“Mount ætna!” exclaimed the ladies all at
once, “how will you manage about the smoke?”

“You shall see.”

“I can tell you something better than that,”
cried Miss Macfaddle, “little Mr. Shorter is going
as puss in boots. He has got a catskin robe and
whiskers, and is learning to purr.”

“Well, I declare,” said Miss Maccubbin, “it
will be quite allegorical.”

“Categorical, you mean,” said Heartwell.

“I don't mean any such thing,” said the lady,
pouting.

“But who is to play my Lord Marquis of Carabas?”

“O, young Middlings; you know his father was
a miller.”

“Does he mean to play the drowning scene?”

The lady gave Heartwell a great blow with her
glove, and the party separated to go and talk of
the fancy ball elsewhere.

9. CHAPTER IX.
MORE OF THE GRAND FANCY BALL.

Our hero studied six days and seven nights, for
an idea of a dress to open the ball with Julia
Wingate, and at length fixed upon that of a
Spanish cavalier, which he calculated on borrowing
from a theatrical friend.

And now the day had come, and the night was
approaching which was for ever to be remembered
in the annals of the queen of the west, as the night
of the great fancy ball at the City Assembly Room.
Not the feast of the Centaurs, nor the hunting of
the Calydonian boar, the two great frolics of antiquity,
were ever half so renowned as we intend
this ball shall be, in future mirrors of fashion.
None but the ignoble vulgar slept that night or
the night before. Young gentlemen packed up
their whiskers, and came all the way from Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and Boston; and several young
ladies had their heels frost bitten in travelling
from the uttermost ends of the earth in prunelle
shoes. Bandboxes, the size of bathing tubs, were

seen parading through the streets with little milliners
under them; the young gentlemen of the
fancy stores had scarcely time to put their hair in
papers, and poor Monsieur Manuel died a few days
after, of the vast exertions he made in reducing
the rebellious curls of young ladies in a state of
nature, to obedience.

It being impossible to convey to the unhappy
reader who was not present at the ball, any idea
of its collective splendours, I shall follow the example
of Homer, and attempt it through the
agency of particular characters and incidents. If
I cannot describe the accumulative horrors of the
fight, I shall relate what damsels conquered, and
what dandies fell on this melancholy occasion.

First, Forcible Feeble, though cased in the invulnerable
armour of indifference, was cured of
an obstinate fit of silence, by the magic influence
of a wedding dress of his grandmother. Next,
Peter Popinjay, who had long declared his determination
not to commit matrimony for love or
money, yielded to the charms of a little Tyrolese,
in short petticoats. There too, fell Nimrod Sparrow,
whose heart had never throbbed before, save at the
sight of a covey of partridges, a horse that could trot
sixteen miles an hour, or a dog at a dead point.
On this occasion, Cupid bent his bow made of the
arching eyebrow of Miss Looqueer, stringing it with
a hair of her silken eye lashes, and shot a ray from
her sparkling eye, that melted the stony heart of

the mighty hunter, and three weeks after turned
him into a hunter of ladies. There, too, was Colonel
Jiggleton, a gallant son of Mars, translated
into a votary of Venus, by the bad French of a
little Parisian milliner; and there, though last not
least, was the Honourable Garrulous Guzzleton,
who spoke more speeches, and ate more canvass
backs than any single member of the lower house,
west of the Blue Ridge, struck dumb by the incessant
chatter of a beautiful lady, dressed as the
Goddess of Silence, with finger on her lip. But I
will proceed no farther with this bill of mortality,
lest it should make the reader melancholy.

Heartwell had taken with him to the ball, a
young Italian count, whom he had known in Italy.
Count G— was somewhat literary, a great admirer
of the ladies, and zealously musical. He
was a man well read in books, and having seen all
that was worth seeing in the old, had come to the
new world, in search of something new. The
count requested Heartwell to play the Diable Boiteaux
for that night, and take him under his special
protection. Accordingly they strolled about
without joining in the dances, conversing and
criticising as the case might be.

“Who is that lady?” asked the count, “I mean
that rather pretty lady, eating a sandwich with
such approbation?”

“That? O that's a Mrs. Smith.”

“And the one on her left, who is making the

most of her time by discussing an ice cream, while
the opposite couple is going through the figure?”

“That is another Mrs. Smith.”

“And the tall, fine looking woman on the left
of the other, eating a jelly? Upon my word, the
ladies cannot be accused of wasting their time!”

“O, that's another of the Mrs. Smiths.”

“Why, good heavens! how many wives has
that Mr. Smith?”

“They are the wives of different Mr. Smiths.
Yonder is another.”

“Good,” cried the count, taking snuff, “I believe
in my soul, your people have all one name,
like the parrots.”

The attention of the count was next attracted
by a young lady of a singularly delicate person,
and an air of fashion about her quite taking.
“Come, Monsieur Diable, do your duty, and tell
me who she is, and what she is thinking about?”

“That young lady,” said Heartwell, “belongs
to an old and somewhat decayed family, which is
still proud of what it once was. But for all that,
she will marry the son of her grandfather's cobbler,
who is very rich. The young man wants
blood, the young lady money; both parties will be
suited. She has just settled the matter in her
own mind.”

Here the soul of Heartwell flashed into his eyes,
on seeing our old friend Sopus, who dressed in a
superb Spanish suit, he had borrowed from his

theatrical friend, was dancing with Julia Wingate
with all his might, and to give him his due,
exceedingly well. The young lady seemed delighted
with her partner, and performed her part
with infinite grace and vivacity, listening between
whiles to the compliments of our roué, with great
appearance of condescension. The truth is, she
was a little piqued at the neglect of Heartwell,
who had been in the room at least twenty minutes,
without speaking to her. Now when young ladies
are piqued, ten to one, they do exactly what they
ought not to do. Julia flirted with Sopus, whom
she despised, only to mortify the man she adadmired
and respected beyond all others. Heartwell
saw all this, and though he believed in his
heart that Julia must in her heart despise the roué,
yet he grew at once violently jealous. Such is
man when he is in love, and his vanity and affections
are unnaturally overheated. The count
twitched his elbow, “You play Monsieur de Diable
badly. Who is that lady with her mouthful,
talking to the gentleman in blue whiskers?”

“That? O that is Mrs. Copper Smith, who
does the honours of the city to all strangers of distinction,
very much to the credit of good society.”
Heartwell was every moment getting more ill natured,
as he looked at Sopus and Julia.

“Her husband,” continued he, “is a plain, honest
old man, such as no sensible person would dare
to laugh at, except when he is playing the fish out

of water, at a fancy ball, or giving a dinner to a
foreign minister. He received a liberal education,
that is at the expense of other people, and
got rich by getting and saving. If you go to
make a bargain with him, he will cavil for the
ninth part of a hair, and then if you are a great
man, he'll give you a dinner that costs a hundred
pounds. In short, though he gets his money like
a negro, he spends it like a gentleman. The
family,” continued Heartwell, looking like a savage
at Sopus, “the family put themselves forward
on all occasions; call on all strangers of
note; impose themselves as the best company of
the city; stuff them with good eating, and tire
them to death with caricatures of fashionable frivolity.
The consequence is that the really well
bred people, who might feel inclined to be civil
to strangers, shrink from them while beset by
these obtrusive vulgarians, and thus strangers go
away with an impression that there is no more
refined and intelligent society in the city.”

“Only a little spice of liberty and equality,”
said the count.

“I understand you,” replied the other, “but
there is no equality in manners; political privileges
have nothing to do with drawing rooms. The end
of social intercourse is pleasure and improvement.
Now there can be neither one nor the other, where
one half of a company is composed of ignorant
vulgar, the other of refined and well educated persons.

The first will feel too ill at ease to improve;
the other will only become more vain by
comparison.”

“Heavens!” cried the count, “what a mouthful,”
as the pretty Mrs. Copper Smith discussed
a huge pickled oyster. “But now I think of it,
I am sure I've seen the lady eat before. I have
it. They invited me last summer to what they
called a French breakfast in the country, and
nearly killed me with a fricassee of Guinea hens.”

Heartwell laughed a very little at this; for just
then Julia gave Sopus a tap with her fan. It was
in fact a most equivocal laugh.

“But you say true,” continued the count, “such
people are highly useful and respectable in their
proper sphere; but when they thrust themselves
forward in fashionable society, and when they do
they are almost always the most noisy and obtrusive,
they throw ridicule on the whole city. You
should serve them as we do in Italy. Treat them
with such profound respect, and insuperable gravity,
that they feel uncomfortable, and never come
again. But come, show me now a specimen of
what you call really well bred.”

“Look round,” said Heartwell, “make use of
your free masonry.”

The count looked round, and at length fixed on
a young lady apparently quite plainly dressed,
and who was quietly conversing with her brother.

“She does honour to your sagacity. Observe

her. She is one of the best bred, accomplished
young women about town. Neither spoiled nor
likely to be. She is rich in her own right; she
dances with a delightful and chastened grace;
sings in the first style of expression; possesses a
mind highly cultivated; reads better than any
body I ever heard; is endowed with the best principles,
tastes, and habits; and yet nobody knows
all this except her immediate family circle.”

“But how? how comes it she is not surrounded
by a hundred admirers?”

“She is modest and retiring,” answered Heartwell,
with a bitter sneer; for Julia was still flirting
with that “puppy, Sopus.”

“Upon my word,” said the other, “you do the
young gentlemen of your city great honour. I
should suppose they would at least have found out
the money.”

“They are apt to have an instinct for that,”
observed Heartwell.

A lady now swept along dressed in a load of
discordant and atrocious finery, the vulgar characteristic
of the day, and was accosted by Heartwell
with—

“My dear Mrs. Smith.” “Another Mrs. Smith!”
ejaculated the count, with uplifted hands.

“My dear Mrs. Smith, what a beautiful dress
you have got!”

“Do you think so,” answered she, her very feathers
quivering with delight. “Do you know

there are but two such in the world, this and another
the Dutchess de B— wore at court last
Christmas. It cost me—”

“Hush!” said Heartwell, solemnly.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the alarmed
lady.

“Your bish—what do you call it, is hind part
before,” whispered he.

“Ah!” screamed Mrs. Smith, and ran into the
attiring room to examine into the matter.

“What did you frighten the lady for?” asked
the count.

“O, I did'nt want to hear the history of that
intolerable dress. I have heard it forty times, at
least; and yet never the true one, for I'll swear
'tis an old dress the Dutchess de B— gave to one
of her maids of honour; who gave it to one of her
waiting maids, who sold it to a little milliner who
was making up a cargo of second-hand finery for
our market.”

In strolling about the room, Heartwell chanced
upon a young married lady, who had been brought
up in the country, whom he found in tears, by the
side of her husband. She was dressed as Euphrosyne.

“My dear Mrs. Gocarty,” said Heartwell, “I
hope you've heard no bad news from the country?
What is the matter?”

“I want to go home to ma,” cried the lady,
again bursting into a torrent of tears.

There was no comforting a lady who came to a
fancy ball to weep, and so they passed on.

“Your ladies must be very fond of home,” observed
the Italian.

“Very,” answered Heartwell, just at the moment
Julia gave her hand to Sopus for a third dance.
“Very—one half of their time is spent at home
in dressing, the other in showing off abroad.”

“What more can be reasonably required,” said
the other.

“La!” cried Miss Macfaddle to Miss Maccubbin,
“If here is'nt Fanny Fitzpoisson, dressed after all
as fine as a fiddle—hem—I wonder where the
money is to come from.”

“A very considerate person,” said the count,
who had overheard her, “what is the name of this
lady who looks so far into futurity?”

“One is called Miss Maccubbin, the other Miss
Macfaddle, and she of the blue satin and feathers,
Miss Fitzpoisson.”

“What horrid names!” cried the count, “How
can you expect any thing like genteel society with
such names? If you could only add lord and
lady, or honourable, it would be something. But
Miss Macfaddle, and Mrs. Jenks, and Mrs. Hobbs,
—ah! it wont do. You must ennoble these people
or you will never arrive at high life, depend
upon it. Now what do you think my title which
at once elevates me into ton, comes from?”

“From a bridge, I should imagine.”

“You are right; there is a very ancient and
good for nothing bridge, in the Dutchy of Tuscany,
which whoever owns is called Count of —, and
I—I am Count of the Mouldering Bridge, at your
service. But in truth,” resumed he of the mouldering
bridge, “it is inconceivable how much depends
upon this. I have lately read a number of
English novels, in the shape of tours, travels, recollections,
memoirs, adventures, &c., all professing
to give a picture of high life, as if high life
was not every where and at all times nothing more
than the association of well bred, well educated
people, such as are to be found in all civilized
countries. Be assured my friend, for I solemnly
swear to it—that these books have no more of high
life in them, than the Newgate Chronicle. Yet
you honest republicans, who so hate aristocracy,
relish these Grub-street delineations, and believe
them all genuine, merely because the actors
and actresses are dubbed with titles by the
authors. My lord and my lady may be as vulgar
as they please, and though you ought to know
better, you adore their high breeding. But,” and
a droll idea seemed to come across him—“But,
suppose now we at one blow make all these Mrs.
Smiths, and Mrs Jenks, and Misses Macfaddles
and Fitzpoissons high ton? Hey!”

“As how,” asked Heartwell.

“By ennobling every soul of them at a single
dash, as the wise king of Spain did a whole province
where they were cutting each others throats
about nobility.”

“With all my heart,” said the other, “you may
consider me as the fountain of honour on this occasion.
Come, here now is the Right Honourable
the Countess of Communipaw—”

“O, no, no! that wont do even for an English
picture of high life. I can't admit such names
into the rank of nobility.”

“Well then, the Right Honourable the Countess
of Mount Garret.”

“Ah! that will do. Mount is high ton. What
of her ladyship?”

“She is too good and respectable to be here,
where she neither feels easy, nor is treated with
the respect she merits. The countess is lately
ennobled into the ranks of the fashionable world,
and the good folks who happened to precede her
a few years, or even months, without half her pretensions,
think themselves quite genteel in laughing
at her.”

“True,” said the count, “one of the last lessons
vulgarity learns, is that there is nothing so vulgar
as laughing at people. I know of no genuine
good breeding and refinement, which does not
essentially consist in a tender regard for the feelings
of another, at least while that other is present.
But who have we here?”

“This? O this is his grace Duke Humphrey, so
called from his never eating dinner, or at least
none of his friends could ever swear to such a
phenomenon. I remember once calling on him
in the country, after five hundred hospitable invitations.
And what do you think? he left his
wife to entertain me, while he went into another
room to eat his dinner; and when he had done,
came and kept me company while she took her
turn. Just as I had my foot in the stirrup, he
begged me to stay and dine; but I saw he had
already dined, for the filthy creature had been in
such a hurry he forgot to wipe his mouth.”

The count shook his head—

“No, no; he wont do even for a duke. I can't
admit him to the privileged order. What are his
merits?”

“He is worth two or three millions.”

“Two or three millions! Duke? he shall be a
king; he can buy a crown for half the money, or
build fifty bridges. I say he shall be a king.”

“With all my heart. King Cole let it be then,
for I see he has forgot to wash his hands.”

“Here comes his queen I suppose,” said the
count, “for I see she too is coloured, but not exactly
after the fashion of his majesty.”

A lady now approached whose cheeks outvied
the rose.

“Is'nt she beautiful?” asked Heartwell.

“Though I have been at Florence and Rome, I
am no great connoiseur in paintings,” said the
count.

“Paintings! why her colour is as natural as that
of the rose. No, no, count; whatever other follies
and foibles our women may commit; whatever
arts they may use to be admired, they are not
yet, thank heaven, so lost to decency as to treat
their faces as we do an old brick wall, or a weather
beaten out house; white wash, or stain it
with red ochre.”

“It may be so,” said the other, coolly helping
himself to a pinch of snuff. “I dare say it is not
universal. I don't think I have seen more than a
dozen or so, this evening.”

“If I thought so I'd forswear matrimony,” said
Heartwell.

“You might do a worse thing. But look now;”
pointing to Julia Wingate, who had danced, and
flirted, and pouted herself into a most enchanting
bloom, “you don't pretend to say that young lady
is not painted?” The count had a little sly malice
in this.

Heartwell, though he was angry with Julia,
could not bear this imputation. He defended her
with such heat that the count was convinced.

“I think I saw her blush just now at something
her handsome partner said.”

Heartwell was angrier than ever at this, and
had a great mind to admit that Julia painted.

“But why so hard upon face painting?” continued
he, “ladies, aye, and gentlemen too,
wear false hair, false teeth, false eyes, eyebrows,
shapes and dimensions, and practice other innocent
deceptions. For my part, I can pardon every
thing false in a woman except the heart.”

“Yes; but count answer me seriously, and upon
your honour, would you like to kiss a lady, I mean
your great grandmother or great aunt, whose face
was painted with red and white paint? oil, verdigris,
sugar of lead, faugh! I'd as soon salute a
painter's pallet.”

“Why upon my honour, though not seriously,”
said the other, laughing, “I would not give a
pinch of snuff to kiss either my great grandmother
or great aunt, painted or not painted; but for
that Miss Wingate I think you call her, faith, I'd
venture even at the risk of a little daubing.”
Here Heartwell bristled like a wild boar. “But
seriously I will allow that there is something gross
and revolting in the deception of face painting,
because it is not only a deception, but a filthy deception.
It indicates an overweening, insatiate
desire for admiration, disreputable to a virtuous
woman, and that more especially in a country
where custom has not sanctioned the practice. It
is one thing to follow a bad fashion; it is another
to set it; and I confess, inured to it as I have
been, I would never consent to unite my fate, or
mix my being with a woman who had accustomed

herself to the practice of cheating the world. I
should fear she would end in cheating me.”

I will not swear that Heartwell heard all this
long speech of the count. He was looking most
of the time at Julia, who was waltzing with friend
Sopus.

“There, there's another precious importation,”
cried he, with most edifying indignation, “I hate
waltzing almost as much as face painting.”

“O thou last of the Goths!” exclaimed the
count, “Mr. Southey is mistaken certainly in
giving that title to Don Roderick. Is it not a delightful,
graceful, titillating, topsy turvy, top
heavy, luxurious dance, and classical too; it puts
one in mind of the Rape of Proserpine. That fellow
there, has the whiskers of Pluto, and looks as
if he would not be a whit too good to carry that
pretty lady to perdition itself.”

Heartwell boiled with rage and jealousy, but
made no reply.

“Allons!” said the other, “proceed with your
catalogue of nobility. Who is that good lady
with the projecting teeth.” Heartwell roused
himself.

“O, that? you must go and do her homage, for
she is your liege lady. That is the Dutchess of
Tuscany. Go and kneel and kiss her hand, like
a loyal subject. What, you have grown too much
of a republican, hey!”

“Truly my knees are become a little stubborn,”

said the other, “but let me see if she is worthy of
my homage. What is she good for?”

“Good for, marry? why she is the most economical,
at the same time the most expensive lady
in town. She buys the richest furniture that can
be procured, and quiets her conscience by never
using it. The looking glasses are all veiled; the
carpets protected by green baizes, and the chairs
have all cover-sluts on; there is no doubt they
will last for ever, bating accidents of flood and
fire.”

A respectable old lady, with nothing distinguished
in dress, except a fine diamond cross, now
passed the two gentlemen.

“That,” said Heartwell, “is a lady of one of the
oldest families in the city. She can trace back,
if not to William the Conqueror, at least to Ragman's
Roll, for her great, great grandmother picked
up many a rag in her day. However, she
figured at the court of his majesty's little governor
before the war, and once passed for the belle of a
birth night ball. The old lady is talking at this
present moment, about having once nearly been
run over by a coach belonging to the son of her
father's barber. It is a story she has told without
mercy every day of her life, to every body that
had time to listen, and without doubt it has contributed
materially to her health and happiness,
for the last twenty years. If you'd like to hear it,
I'll introduce you.”

“O no, by no means—I'll take your word for
it,” said the other. “But who come here arm in
arm?”

This is the Right Honourable Miss Lilly Lovell,
who is the greatest philanthropist in the city. She
has a heart for all mankind except married men
and confirmed old bachelors. Her companion is
the Honourable Billy ullalove, a prosing coxcomb
who is eternally talking sentiment, and raving
about some fashionable beauty, although his heart
is nothing but a piece of dry sponge. He is a
general adorer.”

“This puts me in mind of Goethe's famous
novel, Wilhelm Meister, where the hero falls in
love with every woman in the book except Dame
Margery and the good Frau Melina; and where
the ladies equally complaisant all fall in love with
him, with the exceptions aforesaid.”

“By the way what think you of Goethe,” said
Heartwell, “they call him one of the only three
men of genius the world has produced.”

“They might as well say there never were but
three men in the world with noses, because they
happened to have longer noses than other people.
But the truth is there is a great tickling match
going on between Goethe and the English critics.
Goethe is striving how much he can exalt Shakspeare,
and they in turn are repaying him with
hyperbolical praises.”

“Then you don't think much of him?”

“I think a great deal of him—but there have
been such men in Italy as Dante, Tasso, and a few
others. Until Goethe produces something to
equal them, I shall demur to their being shut out
from this trio of exclusives. One thing is certain;
Lord Byron, who has been equally overrated, has
stolen—I mean borrowed without leave—his address
to Greece, commencing with `Know ye the
land,' from Goethe. It is a slavish parody of what
after all is hardly worth parodying.”

“Will you have any more of the court calendar?”

“No; you have given me quite as much of high
life as the English fashionable novels. But stay;
who is that lady yonder in the grand costume?”

“That is Mrs. Gold Smith, so called from her always
wearing a gold chain that cost as she tells every
body, a hundred guineas. Look my lord it comes.”

The lady now approached.

“Who are you madam?” asked he.

“Lord, Mr. Heartwell don't you see! I am
Queen Ann Bullen of Scotland. How do you
like me?”

“Madam,” said the other, “nobody can help
liking you, but your costume is not correct. Your
ruff is not high enough in the neck.”

“Lord Mr. Heartwell,” replied the lady, glancing
at her snowy neck, et cetera,—“would you have
me look like a witch?”

“Why not, madam, when you bewitch so many

to-night,” cried Heartwell, gallantly bowing. The
lady again glanced at the waste of snow that lay
before her, with an air of perfect approbation.

“But would you believe it,” continued she,
“my sister here and I, have both forgot who she
is. It is quite provoking, when I made her repeat
it so often first before we came.”

“The young lady's loss of memory is particularly
distressing,” said Heartwell, gravely.

“O Hel, dear,”—cried the young lady clapping
her hands, “that is it,—that is it,—I knew it was
memorandum or memory.”

The count whispered in Heartwell's ear—

“Do the young republican ladies swear?”

“What do you mean?” said the other.

“Why the goddess of Memory certainly slipt
out an oath just now.”

“O,” said Heartwell, laughing, “her sister's
name is Heliodora, and Hel is only an innocent
abbreviation.”

“What gentleman is that with you?” said
queen Ann Bullen of Scotland.

“Count G—.”

“You don't say so! Ask him to come and sup
with us after the ball,” and away she tript towards
a lady whom she addressed with “My dear, do tell
me if your kitchen chimney smokes; mine is so
bad there is no such thing as living in it.”

“Is supper almost ready?” said the count, “I

begin to be tired of seeing people dressed in characters
they neglect to personate. 'Tis a bore, as
the English say, when they don't know what else
to say.”

“Certainly, almost as great a bore as some of
your masquerades, where I have seen a personification
of ætna belching fire, and a serpent thirty
feet long, hissing like a flock of matronly geese,
when their goslings are insulted. There will be
no supper to night, I have just heard from good
Queen Ann Bullen, who is capital authority.”

“No, alas! what will the innumerable Mrs.
Smiths say to that? Why they have not demolished
above fifty pickled oysters, a dozen jellies, and a
score of ice creams apiece. I pity them.”

“O, by the way, her majesty desired me to ask
you to supper to-night. Will you go?”

“No, no; no more of your fricasseed Guinea
hens. But see, she beckons with her royal hand.
Faith, it is a beautiful hand and arm. Good night,
my lord Duke Humphrey.”

“Good night, my lord Count of the Mouldering
Bridge.”

“One moment more,” cried the count. “Who
is the lady in pink, yonder.”

“The most atrocious man-slayer in town.”

“I thought so, for I observe not one of the
young men leave her without sideling up to the
nearest looking glass, adjusting their cravats, and
contemplating themselves with particular complacency.

A little this way as thou lovest me,” continued
he, drawing Heartwell towards a cotillion
party. “Look at that genius. I think I can conscientiously
make oath, that gentleman in the immovable
chin, is one of the John Bulls as they call
themselves, who have lately overrun Italy, and
sacked Rome like another Alaric and his Goths.
Instead, however, of subsisting by plunder as did
that valiant hero, they gain a comfortable livelihood
by writing books of romance under the disguise
of travels; and abusing us Italians for being
so immoral as not to talk English.”

“He certainly is an Englishman,” said Heartwell,
“no mortal man of any other nation or age,
could get through a cotillion without sense or motion.”

“He dances like the stump of one of Orpheus'
trees.”

“Or rather like one of his rocks; he certainly
belongs to the primeval family.”

“He would make a capital corner stone for the
wall of Thebes. And see, what a grace he has
for a partner!”

“Yes,” said Heartwell, “I have observed that
if a man happens to be gloriously deficient in any
one thing, he generally manages with admirable
adroitness, to make it as conspicuous as possible,
by placing himself in direct contrast with some
one who particularly excels. There! there! did
you see that resurrection of a dead caper. I could

almost swear he got one of his feet at least from
the floor. It is now that I see the reason why
Queen Elizabeth made Sir Christopher Hatton her
Lord Chancellor, for his excellence in gestic lore,
since a true born, and true bred Englishman, who
can conquer the natural incapacity of his nation
for dancing, must be equal to any thing. I don't
wonder half so much at Sir Isaac Newton as I do
at Sir Christopher, who I look upon as the greatest
genius England ever produced.”

10. CHAPTER X.
LOVE'S PERPLEXITIES.

The only persons not pleased with the fancy
ball, were Julia Wingate, who was out of humour
with herself; Heartwell, who was out of humour
with Julia; and Mrs. Smith, number nine, who
was disappointed at there being no supper. All
the rest were particularly pleased, and none more
so than our hero, who went to bed perfectly satisfied
that Julia Wingate was in love with him to
distraction. He did not like her half as well as
her mother, but his affairs were rather at a low
ebb; Julia would certainly be a fortune one day
or other, and being an only daughter, he could

live in the house with the old people till the father
chose to give them an establishment of their own.
So he determined to marry Julia Wingate. Having
come to this comfortable resolution, he fell
asleep, and did not awake till twelve the next day.

Julia lay awake a long while that night, but
she was not thinking of our hero. She was trying
with all her might to be angry with Heartwell, for
not speaking to her the whole evening. A certain
instinct whispered to her, that this was owing
entirely to her flirting with Sopus; but then her
flirting with Sopus was as entirely owing to Heartwell's
neglect; so after all it was his fault and not
hers. But then again, what business had he to be
angry at her flirtations, if he was not a little in
love with her; and if he was in love, then he
wanted a proper respect for her in believing for a
moment that she could prefer such a man as Sopus
to himself. At all events, until he declared himself,
he had no right to take offence at her conduct,
and therefore to be angry was a great piece
of impertinence, for which he deserved punishment.
Accordingly Julia resolved to be angry
with Heartwell, and flirt with Sopus until the
former made a downright declaration, or demonstrated
his affection by growing very pale and melancholy.
Having come to this determination, she
lay awake restless and feverish the rest of the night.

Heartwell was a man of spirit, and such a man
makes a most refractory lover, until he is fairly

broke in. I advise the young ladies to beware of
a young man of spirit and sense, for such generally
make the most wayward, troublesome, peevish innamoratos
in the world. Even love cannot degrade
them into slaves before marriage, nor matrimony
convert them into tyrants afterwards. I
therefore again seriously advise young ladies of
discretion, either to select a fool for a husband, or
make a fool of him as soon as possible. Heartwell
went home to his lodgings, where he sat two
hours, making marks in the ashes with a poker. His
thoughts crossed their tracks, as they say in the
western country, a hundred times, and as often did
he change his determination. To choose such a
puppy as Sopus to play off against him; if he had
only been a fine, first rate fellow, full of sense,
spirit, and honour, why—why—confound it, he
would have been satisfied. Here he told a great
lie, for if Julia had selected such a one he would
have been ten times more jealous than ever. But
the greatest hypocrite in the world deceives himself
oftener than he does others. His first resolution
was to take a trip to Boston or Philadelphia. But
he disliked travelling, particularly in winter. Besides,
this would be leaving the field entirely to his
rival. Then he determined to stay in town without
going near her for a fortnight. But this was
liable to the same objection; it was giving Sopus
the advantage. Then he resolved to give her up
entirely, visiting her occasionally merely to show
his indifference. But in a little time, after making
a few more marks in the ashes, his heart
relented from this harsh decree. It was the first
time she had ever served him so, and after showing
a proper sense of the indignity, he thought upon
the whole he would forgive her, in a week or so.
He made a few more marks, and figured the name
of Julia in large capitals in the ashes. “Julia!”
what a sweet name, and what a sweet girl. Such
a foot! It was all over with Heartwell. He determined
to see her in the morning, and pardon
her on the spot. After which he went to bed and
had a very ill natured dream. He dreamed he
told a young lady who appeared in the costume of
Folly, that it was hardly necessary to put on a
disguise to play the character in perfection.

The next morning he called to see Julia as early
as fashion would permit, and was denied. “I
suppose she is fatigued with last night's dissipation,”
thought Heartwell, and walked slowly down
Broadway. Happening to turn his head, he saw
our hero ringing at the door. Heartwell had not
the least curiosity in the world, yet he could not
help peeping, now and then, over his shoulder.
Sopus was admitted without hesitation, and what
was worse than all, he must have seen Heartwell
denied, for he gave him a most provoking, unbearable
nod, as he entered the house. “By
heavens!” said Heartwell to himself, “that's too
bad. If I put up with this, may I dwindle into a

led captain.” He took a long walk on the Battery
and met there an old acquaintance, who never
passed any body without crying out “fine day,” in
a voice like a north-wester. “Very,” replied
Heartwell. “Not very either,” said the other,
“its fine walking overhead, but bad under foot.”
“Very,” quoth Heartwell.

“Rather sloppy.”

“Rather.”

“Very open winter.”

Heartwell kept his mouth shut.

“Good morning, Mr. Heartwell.”

“Good evening, Mr. White.”

The man's name was Black.

“What the deuce is the matter with Heartwell.
I believe the Devil is in him,” thought Mr. Black.
He was not much out in his calculation. An
angry lover is as near being possessed by the
evil one, as was the herd of swine.

Sopus was received by Julia with a smiling
welcome, which many a man before him, has mistaken
for something more. The truth is Julia was
delighted with having turned Heartwell from the
door, and delighted with our hero as the instrument
of revenging herself on the man she really
preferred to all others. This is the way with women.
They don't mind how many innocent hearts
they break, if they can only revenge themselves
upon the man of their own heart. But they should
be forgiven for this, because they sometimes

wreck their own happiness, and break their own
hearts, in pursuit of the same object.

Our hero was exalted with his reception, and
several times came as near making a declaration,
as a man could do, and escape. “I will open myself
to her mother,” thought he. “No, hang it,
that wont do. The old lady mistook my declaration
of love to her, for one to her daughter; who
knows but she may make another blunder, and
take this one to herself?” After spending about
two hours, and tiring poor Julia almost to death,
he departed, just as Heartwell who was going up
Broadway, by accident was looking directly at the
door. Sopus nodded to him again, and crossed
over the street to join him. “Which way are you
going?” said Heartwell. “Up the street,” said
the other. “I am going down,” cried Heartwell,
turning short about, and retracing his steps down
Broadway. “A cut,” quoth Sopus, “but I'll cut

him out for this.”

11. CHAPTER XI.
MORE OF LOVE'S PERPLEXITIES.

Heartwell was engaged to a party that evening,
where he was sure of meeting Julia. He wrote

an apology and threw it into the fire. About a
quarter of an hour after he wrote another, and
lighted his candle with it. About ten minutes
after, he wrote a third, which he sealed with a
wafer instead of perfumed wax. It would not do,
and he tore it to pieces in a great passion. At
length, mustering his wrongs in battle array, the
flirtation at the ball; the denial of himself and
the admission of Sopus; his infernal long visit; his
confounded familiar nod; and his intolerable air of
success; he pronounced himself an injured, insulted
man, and sent off his apology. Before the servant
had got a hundred yards, he regretted this
precipitation; but his fate was sealed, and by
perfumed wax. It was too late.

Julia said to herself as she was dressing for the
party, “I wonder if he will be there.” Young
ladies never mention the name of a certain person,
except in their sleep. As she rode to the party,
she revolved in her mind how she should behave
towards Heartwell. Should she be dignified or
familiar; pettish or amiable; natural or artificial;
mystical or all simplicity. At last she settled
it in her mind, that as Heartwell was not quite
sufficiently punished, she would play off Sopus
against him for that night only, and then forgive
Heartwell. Heartwell was not there, but
no doubt he would come; accordingly Julia
smiled and flirted with our hero, every now and
then eyeing the door as it opened. She looked

over a port folio with our hero, and their heads
almost touched. She suffered him to snatch a
nosegay, intending this to be the last stab she
would inflict on poor Heartwell. But yet he came
not; and as it grew later and later, Julia said to
herself, “He will not come to-night.” From that
moment she treated Sopus with a pettishness
which he could not fathom, although he had finished
his education abroad. She insisted upon
having back her nosegay; and when he offered to
hand her to the carriage, absolutely forced herself
upon the Right Honourable Billy Fullalove,
who thereupon fell ten times more deeply in love
with the whole sex, than ever he was before. “A
woman,” quoth Sopus, in the bitterness of his
wrath, “a woman is like a riddle and no riddle.
She—”. Here he was elbowed out of the house
by an inundation of fashionable people, who
seem in as grea a hurry to get home as they are
to go abroad. As Julia rode home she resolved
more resolutely than ever not to forgive Heartwell
for not coming to the party, to afford her the
satisfaction of making him miserable.

All this while the disconsolate Heartwell sat by
the evening fire, looking intently at it, till his eyes
smarted. He figured to himself the fair Julia,
gliding through the intricacies of the crowd, hanging
on the arm of that infernal Sopus, laughing,
chatting, and flirting with the intolerable puppy.
“Had she only given me a decent rival,” and he

deceived himself just as he did the night before.
“Now,” thought he, “she is dancing with Sopus.
But how well she dances; how gracefully elegant,
how much like a lady; and then her foot, her dear,
pretty little, lady like foot, playing at bo-peep with
Sopus' infernal French pumps. D—n Sopus!”
But the little foot mollified Heartwell exceedingly,
and he was very near forgiving Julia, when he
again conjured up Julia's beautiful little satin
shoes, as it were, exchanging civilities with the
infernal French pumps of Sopus. This idea got
the better of the other, and again he relapsed into
wrath unappeasable.

“Ah, Julia! if you only knew—” “What?”
cried a voice close at his elbow. “My dear
Lord Count of the Mouldering Bridge, whence
came you? and how did you get in so quietly?”

“Quietly! I almost knocked down the street
door, and fell over three chairs and a table in finding
my way to you. What is the reason you were
not at Mrs. Saddleback's party to-night? I came
to see if you were ill.”

“I'm tired of parties, sick of fancy balls, and—”

“And meditate retiring from the world, to play
hermit, and moralize on the inconstancy of woman.
Hey, my Lord Duke Humphrey?”

“Is it a supper and ball?” asked Heartwell, who
being exceedingly anxious on a certain point, began
as far off as possible. “Is it a ball and supper?”

“To be sure, fat Bennett half asleep, and the
fricasseed Guinea hen as hot as ætna.”

“Was it a large party?”

“As usual. Your good folks here seem to
think the more the merrier, and crowd us together
like the scales of a fish.”

“Any new faces?”

“Some few; nothing worth a song.”

“Any old ones?”

“Why yes; by the bye, there was that fine girl,
Miss, Miss Cowgate; no, Hellgate; no, Newgate;
no, what a plague—I'll swear there is a gate in it.”

“Wingate?” said Heartwell, his voice sinking
into a whisper, and his heart beating louder than
his tongue.

“Aye, Wingate; that's the name. Upon my
soul, Heartwell, she is a fine girl. But 'tis a pity
she is going to throw herself away on that half
bred roué, Sopefat, or Soapsuds—what's his confounded
name?”

“Sopus?” answered Heartwell, in a voice still
weaker than before, and a heart sunk away nobody
knows where. “Is it all settled?”

“Is it all settled,” cried the gay count, mimicing
him. “Yes, it is all settled as they say. She
was very particular with him to-night, and either
is fond of the blockhead, or wanted to make somebody
she was fond of jealous, I don't know which.
But come, return with me, we shall be in time for
the Guinea hen, and you may laugh a little at

Soapsuds, who walks on air, and snuffs gas. Will
you go?”

“I'll be — if I do,” cried Heartwell, in a
great passion.

“O well, don't take fire. Good night. I shall
go back and make interest to be asked to the
wedding,” and away went the count as merry as
an old fashioned May morning in the month of
June.

Poor Heartwell! he was getting worse and
worse every moment. As the hours crept slowly
and wearily on, he continued present in fancy
at the ball, and saw Julia and Sopus flirting together.
He saw them exchanging looks, and
talking with their eyes—he saw him hand her into
supper, sit by her side, crowded so close they
almost grew together—he saw them touch their
glasses, nay their very hands—he saw him help
her to the fricasseed Guinea hen—and oh! horror,
he saw her eat of it with an appetite most horrible!
He could see no more; but he swore that night
he would act the part of a friend to the family,
and apprise the mother that Sopus was a spendthrift,
a roué, a ruined man, and a great blockhead.
“It is nothing to me, now,” said he, “but
'tis a pity so fine a girl should be thrown away.”

The next morning he again knocked at the
door of Julia Wingate. He asked for the mother
and was admitted. The good lady with whom
Heartwell was a great favourite, asked him where

he had been so long, and was going to ring for
Julia, but he stopt her.

“Madam,” said he, “Madam, I have no business
with Miss Wingate—I mean, I come as an old
friend of the family—you know my grandfather
and yours were once in business together—I come
as an old friend—my mother and you were very
intimate—as an old friend of the family, of whose
hospitality I have so often partaken, in whose society
I have enjoyed so many happy, happy hours
—to talk to you about Miss Wingate—that is to
say—to—to—warn—that is to say—to caution—
to ask you madam—if if—ha—ha—hem—hum”—
and Heartwell ran high and dry ashore.

“You ask so many questions that I hardly
know how to answer them; but if you will put
one at a time I will promise to satisfy you if I only
comprehend,” said the lady, smiling.

“Why then madam—I would ask—that is
to say—I would inquire as a very old friend of
the family—whether—whether—whether—Miss
Wingate means to honour Mr. Sopus with her
hand; because if she does—as an old—a very
old friend of the family I feel bound”—

“Julia,” interrupted Mrs. Wingate, “Julia, will
you answer for yourself, and tell this very old gentleman
whether you are going to marry Mr. Sopus?”
and the old lady glided out just as the young
one glided into the room. They both looked at
first like two great fools; after a little while Julia

could not for the soul of her help smiling; Heartwell
smiled too, and asked her as soon as he could
find breath to utter it, “Whether she really meant
to marry Mr. Sopus, because if she did, his duty
as an old friend—a very old friend—”

“Pray how old are you Mr. Heartwell,” asked
Julia, laughing.

No man was ever afraid of a woman laughing.
Heartwell answered warmly—

“Old enough to admire your beauty—cherish
your virtues—and wise enough to know that the
possession will make me happy beyond all happiness.
Julia I adore you.”

The young lady's face neck and bosom was of
the hue of fire. She said not a word, for ladies
should say nothing when looks can so well answer
the purpose. There was a tear in her eye as she
at length said, “What a fool I have been!”

“And so have I; I thought you were going to
marry Mr. Sopus. Why did you pay him such
attentions?”

“Why did you neglect me so?”

“I thought my attentions had become disagreeable.”

“And I thought you hated me.”

“Oh! Julia!”

“Oh! Heartwell!” replied Julia, as she—I'll
not swear but she permitted him to fold his arms
about her slender waist, and kiss her warm lips.
Nay, it is my firm belief that she did. But I trust

I am too discreet a person to disclose matters which
are always communicated to us writers under the
seal of secrecy, but which, with shame and sorrow
I speak it, they take the first opportunity of blabbing
to the whole world.

“O, Heartwell!” exclaimed Julia, in a glow.

“Dearest Julia, when—”

“Mr. Sopus,” cried a servant.

“The Devil take Mr. Sopus,” thought Heartwell.

Julia did not swear, but she wished him in
Guinea, as Heartwell hastily took his leave, not
as well pleased as he should have been.

Our hero was received by Julia with monosyllables;
entertained with monosyllables; and dismissed
with the shortest monosyllable in the English
language. O! how Julia hated him for
having made Heartwell miserable. Having the
field all to himself, Sopus determined to sieze the
opportunity.

“Adorable Miss Wingate, will you be mine?”

“NO!” said Julia, and quitted the room with
the step of a queen.

Sopus was at a loss for a comparison that would
do justice to the occasion. “A woman,” quoth
he, “is like—”

“Your glove, sir,” said a servant, who had followed
him. “You dropt it in the parlour.”

“Faith, I wish she was like my glove,” quoth

Sopus, drawing it on. “But I'll insult Heartwell
the first good opportunity.” He never found a
good opportunity.

12. CHAPTER XII.
LESSONS FOR GROWN UP LADIES.

During the remainder of the season, our hero
principally occupied himself with cultivating the
acquaintance of married ladies, and young men
of little experience and plenty of spending money.
The former he tried to teach fashionable
morals, and the latter fashionable manners; that
is, he endeavoured to persuade the young men to
make love, and the married ladies to encourage
them. But he found great, nay, insuperable difficulties
in overcoming the modesty of the young
gentlemen, and the old fashioned notions of the
matrons. “These yankees,” quoth our hero, “are
as hard to tame as tigers.”

He resorted on one occasion to argument with
a lady who cherished the most absurd notions of
conjugal felicity, “and all that sort of thing,” as
the English say.

“My dear madam,” said he one day to Mrs.
Judge Bridlegoose, “a married woman of fashion

abroad, has no more to do with her husband than
you have here with the husbands of other women.
She makes use of nothing belonging to
him except his name and his money. The first is
useful on certain occasions, the latter indispensable.”

“Why what in the name of sense,” cried Mrs.
Judge Bridlegoose, “do the people marry for?”

“To do as they please.”

I never did as I pleased since I was married,
thought Mrs. Judge; the thing is not so unreasonable
after all.

“Women are thought nothing of abroad until
they are married,” continued Sopus.

“And when they are married?” asked the lady.

“O, every body thinks and talks of them too.
They are like foxes let out of a bag to be hunted.”

“But I should not like to be hunted.”

“No, my dear madam! why what did you
marry for?”

“To get a husband.”

Our hero laughed; it was impossible to help it.
“And what is a husband good for, except to lend
you his name, and give you his money?”

“Good for? why—why—” the lady was a little
puzzled. “Why one wants a man about the
house to take care of one, and to go to market.”

“My dear madam, you put me in mind of a lady
of this town, who took her husband with her to
Paris. `My dear,' said her friend, who knew of

how little use a husband was in Paris—`my dear,
what possessed you to bring him with you?”'

“`I wanted some body to hold the basin for me
when I was sea sick,' said the other.”

Mrs. Judge Bridlegoose laughed, and was very
near being satisfied that husbands were like fireplaces,
very useful, but very unbecoming. However,
our hero, though he partly satisfied her understanding,
could not get the better of education and
habit, the best preservatives of virtue.

But though he failed here, he succeeded in another
important branch of civilization. He taught
several young men to play at cards and dice, who
by some strange miracle were ignorant of them
before, and gained a comfortable livelihood by it.
How much better than teaching French, Italian,
and Spanish; or debasing the character of a roué
by some useful occupation. In the month of May,
Julia and Heartwell were married. “There is but
one more misery I wish him,” quoth Sopus, “may
old Wingate live a hundred years and his wife
fifty.”

13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE DISHING OF A ROUÉ.

The summer now came on, bringing in its train
a thousand blessings: relieving the poor from the
pinching cold of winter, and exchanging chilling
frosts and howling blasts, for two of the best gifts
of heaven, sunshine and sweet south winds. The
town thinned apace, and every thing in the shape
of a human being, I mean all the fashionable brokers,
speculators, and people that make money
genteelly, were either gone or going to the
Springs, the mountains, the shore, or the grand
tour. Our hero had a run of luck, that is, he had
been well paid of late for finishing the education
of certain young gentlemen of fashion. He determined
on a trip to the Springs, for he had heard
it was an excellent place for flirting and getting
an appetite. But he had a secret and a stronger
motive.

For some time past he had been in the habit of
dining with an acquaintance at a fashionable
Broadway House, frequented by travellers coming
from the south to spend the summer. Here he
met with a Mr. and Mrs. Sarsfield, who had come
I believe from the western part of Virginia, and

stopped a few weeks in the city, on their way to
Saratoga. Mr. Sarsfield was a tall, upright figure,
rather of a brown complexion, although his hair
and eyes were of a light colour. He wore a white
hat with a broad brim; a blue frock, not of the
first cut, or finesh materials, and his hair was tied
behind with a black ribbon. He had no more
whiskers than the palm of my hand, and was otherwise
exceedingly defective in fashionable indispensables.
Yet with all this, a better taste and a
keener eye, than that of our hero, would have distinctly
recognized the air, the manner, and above
all, the look of a well bred, well educated gentleman.
There are none who make such fatal blunders,
as those who judge a man by the standard of
his dress. Sopus determined to give the tall gentleman
with the long queue, a touch of his foreign
education. “I've caught a quiz,” thought he. It
turned out he had caught a Tartar.

The tall gentleman, with the long queue and no
whiskers, had a charming wife, much younger than
himself, and to say the truth, much handsomer.
Her complexion, though she was born under a
southern sun, was extremely fair; her eyes of a
most equivocal colour, whether black, hazle, or
grey, I could never make out to my satisfaction;
teeth white and even; lips, cheeks, &c. of nature's
best handy work; and a figure “too short
for a long praise, and too tall for a short one,” it
was the very thing. Her hair was brown and dazzling,

and though I hardly expect to be credited
by my fashionable readers, it curled naturally, a
thousand times more gracefully than either Monsieur
Manuel or Monsieur Sebastian could make
it, with all their matchless “gramary.” She was
as lively as a singing bird in his native forest; as
unsuspecting as Eve, when she first met the first
man; and as innocent, as when she first listened
to the song of the serpent. “A prize!” thought
our roué; and forthwith he laid out upon the
beautiful matron all the stock of his foreign importations.

The lady had never met with a creature of his
species before. She laughed at him, and with
him; she danced with him at several parties; she
walked with him on the Battery by moonlight, and
took his arm with as innocent a frankness as she
would that of her grandfather. The tall gentleman
with the long queue, had seen a little more of
the world than his wife. He had actually been
Chargé at a foreign court, and spent a winter in
Paris. But he never spoke of it except it was necessary.
He had his eye upon our hero, having
seen enough of the world to fathom his intentions;
but he knew his wife, and the only feeling he had
on the subject, was of insulted honour, rather than
suspicion or jealousy. The very idea that there is
a being breathing on the face of the earth, who
dares to dream of, much more to meditate, seducing

the wife of our bosom, is intolerable to a man
of spirit and honour.

Our hero took passage in the steam boat with
the beautiful Virginia wife and her tall husband.
He played the roué in the very first style; handed
the lady up stairs and down stairs; was at her
elbow from morning till night, and took up so
much of her attention that two or three times she
actually forgot her husband. “Is that pretty lady
your wife?” asked an old lady, very significantly.
“Heaven forbid!” quoth Sopus. In this way he
travelled with them to the Springs, kindly taking
upon himself all the trouble of entertaining and
waiting upon the fair matron. All this while Mr.
Sarsfield said nothing; for there is no task from
which a proud man more shrinks, than that of indicating,
either in word or act, that he disapproves
another man's attentions to his wife. He knows
that if matters are going wrong, it will only make
them worse; and he scorns to become the Argus
of what a woman ought herself to guard. Besides,
he saw as clearly that his wife was innocent, as
that the roué was intent on making her otherwise.
He held his tongue; but it was the silence of the
brewing tempest.

At the Springs, one of the principal occupations
of people is to watch one another, and the principal
amusement to detail the result. Sopus continued
his attentions without the inexperienced
wife being in the remotest degree the wiser

for his significant looks, and speaking sighs. But
other people saw clearer. There was an old lady
in spectacles who had spent a month or six weeks
at the Springs, every summer since the discovery
of America. Of course she knew a little of the
world. One day she said to Mrs. Sarsfield,
“What does that young man want that he is always
following you about?” “I don't know,” replied the
other. “I do,” said the old lady. Soon after,
Sopus met Mrs. Sarsfield alone in the music room,
and kissed her hand, in full view of the husband,
who was standing unseen. M Sarsfield felt an
almost irresistible impulse to kick Mr. Sopus on the
spot. But checking himself, he sent his wife up
stairs to get ready for a ride, and shutting the door
of the music room, addressed our hero as follows,
in a mild firm voice.

“Mr. Sopus, your attentions to my wife are becoming
disagreeable to me.”

“So long as they are not disagreeable to the
lady, I presume there is no harm done,” replied
our hero, with a laugh, for he thought he had to de
with a clod-hopper of the first pretensions.

Sarsfield's eyes flashed fire; but he restrained
himself.

“Mr. Sopus, you must be aware that this is not
a place where any thing like particular and constant
attention can be paid to a married woman,
without giving occasion to ill-natured remarks and
suspicions, real or pretended. Mrs. Sarsfield is not

aware of this; I therefore speak to you rather than
her. I again take the freedom to observe, that
your attentions to Mrs. Sarsfield are disagreeable
to me.”

“And I,” said Sopus, pertly, “again observe
that so long as they are not disagreeable to the
lady, I shall continue my attentions.”

Heaven and earth! what a shower of blows was
just on the point of wetting the shoulders of our
hero. But Mr. Sarsfield as I observed before, was
a man of the world, and knew that were he to
take any measure of this kind, it would set ten
thousand tongues running like mill clappers.
He accordingly restrained himself once more; and
that very afternoon went with Mrs. Sarsfield over
to Ballston. The very next morning Mr. Sopus
was at Ballston renewing his devoirs. Sarsfield
was out of all patience, and swore he would have
satisfaction for this insolent perseverance. He
took occasion upon pretence of some little impertinence
of our hero which had no reference to the
more weighty cause of complaint, to pass upon
him a direct and palpable insult, such as no man
pretending to the character of a gentleman, could
overlook without being dishonoured. There are
some men who possess that amiable philosophy,
which putteth up with insult, not in the spirit of
forgiveness, but from a natural insensibility to such
trifles. Our hero was of this sect of philosophers,
and accordingly suffered the insult of Mr. Sarsfield

to pass unnoticed. The company instead of admiring
this singular magnanimity, hereupon began
to look askance, and to shun the society of the
accomplished Mr Sopus, who soon saw himself
in the enviable situation of a man alone in a crowd.
One day at dinner, he asked a gentleman to take
wine with him. The gentleman politely answered,
“I never drink wine,” and a moment after, drank
a glass with Mr. Sarsfield.

Our hero saw that he must either call out the
tall man with the long queue, and peril his life, or
die to the fashionable world. He neither had an
office, nor a commission in the militia, and could
therefore plead no privilege. Accordingly he resolved
on challenging Mr. Sarsfield, being pretty
confident that a man without whiskers, and who
wore a long queue tied with a black ribbon, could
never be a man of courage. Under this consoling
conviction he sent Mr. Sarsfield a challenge, which
greatly to his surprise and mortification, was
promptly accepted. They went over into Vermont,
that being the nearest “debatable land.”

“You don't mean to harm this calf?” asked Mr.
Sarsfield's second.

“Not much; I shall only give him a lesson he
will be the better for all his life.”

The distance was paced, the preliminaries settled,
and the word about being given, when just at the
critical moment, the pistol of the gallant roue went
off—it was a hair trigger—and inflicted a sore

wound in the lower part of his leg. He fell; and
his antagonist learning that our hero was satisfied
fired his pistol in the air, at the same time politely
expressing his regrets at the accident. “I
shall be at your service at any time,” said he, and
thus ended this affair of honour.

Sopus was carried to a neighbouring village,
and deposited in a hotel, where he remained nearly
three months, and became not only very tired, but
ran up a bill which he had not the means of paying.
He had plenty of leisure to moralize, and
accordingly came to the conclusion that the American
husbands were a set of vulgar semi-barbarians.
He tried to seduce the landlord into a little
gambling, both as a means of passing his time, and
providing for the payment of his bill. But mine
host was a man of nice scruples. He speculated
in lottery tickets, but he was principled against all
sorts of gambling.

His long stay at this place, and his long bill,
fairly emptied his pockets, and left him in debt
besides. He quitted the hotel a lame duck in both
senses. He was lame of a leg, and out at the
elbows. When he got to the city he forgot to
send the scrupulous landlord his money as he had
pledged himself to do. Mine host, impatient at
the delay, had him arrested and put in prison, to
the horror of good society, and the consternation
of divers fashionable young roués, who felt a sort
of instinctive dislike to such vulgar places as goals.

Poor Sopus, not being in business, had not the enviable
privilege of taking the benefit of the bankrupt
law three or four times, without being at all
the worse for it, either in reputation or estate.

An old uncle, a grocer in Pump-street, whose
acquaintance our hero had cut from the moment
he was transplanted to the Square, hearing of his
situation came to see him, and such was the wonderful
virtue of the specific administered by the
hand of honest adversity, that Sopus actually forgave
the old man for being a grocer, and living
in Pump-street.

“You shall go home, and live with me,” said the
good man.

“On one condition,” replied our hero.

“What is that?”

“That you get the name of the street changed,
and promise not to degrade me into your shop
boy.”

The old grocer promised, and subsequently
made such pathetic representations to the corporation
of that day, that they changed the name of
Pump to that of Cistern-street, which it bears even
at the present time. Sopus was in hopes that this
genteel appellation would tempt all the beau
monde of Broadway, to let their houses for taverns
and ordinaries, and come and live in Cistern-street.
And so it will probably be in good time.

Our hero was now lame of a leg, like the Great
Tamerlane, and lived with a retail grocer up in

the Bowery. Had it only been a wholesale grocery,
he might have been permitted to subscribe
to the City Assembly. But the retail business
was the bar sinister: and our hero fell from the
height of fashionable renown, to be trodden under
foot like the worms that hang from the elm trees
in Broadway, now vaulting to and fro in gallant
trim, and anon grovelling in the dust ingloriously.
At present, instead of aspiring to instruct fashionable
matrons in the cabalistics of foreign manners,
and the young gentlemen in the canons of European
perfectability, he contents himself with talking
a little equivocally to the ladies who preside
over the apple stalls, and cookey shops in Cheapside
and Chatham Square, where he is still venerated
as a roué razeed.

I met him the other day, hobbling along, with
little remains of his ancient glories, except his
whiskers, and inquired how he came to be in such
a condition.

“I am a sufferer in the cause of `Public Improvement'
and `Domestic Policy.”'

“What! you could not civilize us after all?”

“No; I would as soon attempt to civilize the
Indians,” replied The Roue.