Fired with a noble thirst for style, they instantly emerged from the retired lane in which themselves and their accomplishments had hitherto been buried; and they blazed, and they whizzed, and they cracked about town like a nest of squibs and devils in a firework. Their sudden eclat may be likened to that of the locust, which is hatched in the dust, where it increases and swells up to maturity, and after feeling for a moment the vivifying rays of the sun, bursts forth a mighty insect, and flutters, and rattles, and buzzes from every tree. The little warblers, who have long cheered the woodlands with their dulcet notes, are stunned by the discordant racket of this upstart intruder, and contemplate, in contemptuous silence, its bustle and its noise. Having once started, the Giblets were determined that nothing should stop them in their career, until they had run their full course, and arrived at the very tip-top of style. Every tailor, every shoe-maker, every coach-maker, every milliner, every mantua-maker, every paper-hanger, every pianoteacher, and every dancing-master in the city, were enlisted in their services; and the willing wights most courteously answered their call, and fell to the work of building up the fame of the Giblets, as they had done that of many an aspiring family before them. In a little time the young ladies could dance the waltz, thunder Lodoiska, murder French, kill time, and commit violence on the face of nature in a landscape in water-colors, equal to the best lady in the land; and the young gentlemen were seen lounging at corners of streets, and driving tandem; heard talking loud at the theater, and laughing in church, with as much ease, and grace, and modesty, as if they had been gentlemen all the days of their lives. And the Giblets arrayed themselves in scarlet, and in fine linen, and seated themselves in high places; but no body noticed them, except to honor them with a little contempt. The Giblets made a prodigious splash in their own opinion; but no body extolled them, except the tailors and the milliners who had been employed in manufacturing their paraphernalia. The Giblets thereupon being, like Caleb Quotem, determined to have "a place at the review," fell to work more fiercely than ever; they gave dinners, and they gave balls; they hired confectioners, and they would have kept a newspaper in pay, had they not been all bought up at that time for the election. They invited the dancing men, and the dancing women, and the gormandizers, and the epicures of the city, to come and make merry at their expense; and the dancing men, and the dancing women, and the epicures, and the gormandizers did come; and they did make merry at their expense; and they ate, and they drank, and they capered, and they danced, and they-laughed at their entertainers. Then commenced the hurry, and the bustle, and the mighty nothingness of fashionable life; such rattling in coaches! such flaunting in the streets! such slamming of box-doors at the theater! such a tempest of bustle and unmeaning noise wherever they appeared! The Giblets were seen here and there and every where; they visited every body they knew, and every body they did not know; and there was no getting along for the Giblets. Their plan at length succeeded. By dint of dinners, of feeding and frolicking the town, the Giblet family worked themselves into notice, and enjoyed the ineffable pleasure of being for ever pestered by visiters, who cared nothing about them; of being squeezed, and smothered, and parboiled at nightly balls, and evening tea-parties; they were allowed the privilege of forgetting the very few old friends they once possessed; they turned up their noses at every thing that was not genteel; and their superb manners and sublime affectation at length left it no longer a matter of doubt that the Giblets were perfectly in the style. THE CAPTAIN.-A FRAGMENT.-Brainard. [The Bridgeport paper of March, 1823, said: “Arrived, schooner Fame, from Charleston, via New London. While at anchor in that harbor, during the rain storm on Thursday evening last, the Fame was run foul of by the wreck of the Methodist Meeting House, from Norwich, which was carried away in the late freshet."] Solemn he paced upon that schooner's deck, Speaking in breakers! Ay, and I have seen The whale and sword-fish fight beneath my bows: Cat-head, or beam, or davit has it none, And make for Bridgeport! There where Stratford Point, SMALL TALK.-T. H. BAILEY: Small talk is indispensable at routs, Where friends, in number eight-or thereabout- If small talk were abolished, I've my doubts Nor shall the stigma, ladies, fall on you, Men love a little bit of small talk too. What changes there would be, if no tongues ran There's many a communicative man Would take to silence and to cogitation. 'T would stop old maids (if aught that's earthly can,) And cut the thread of many an oration: Old bachelors would daudle through the day, What would become of those who, when at prayers, Partners at balls would look extremely blue, Lovers would think it very hard, I fear, If sober sense they were condemned to speak; How very peaceable we should be then; None would have words,-even bullies would be dumb; How changed would be the busy hum of men; The fame of certain wits would prove a hum; Tatlers, deprived of speech, would sieze a pen, They are a nuisance not to be o'ercome; Schemers the credulous no more would balk, For schemes would very rarely end in talk. These changes are not all;-I'll not proceed, They'd baffle any man's investigation. To calculate them all-I must exceed George Bidder, who is famed for calculation: Arithmetic to him's a pleasant game 'He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came!" THE FRETFUL MAN.-Cowper. Some fretful tempers wince at every touch, That's worse-the drone-pipe of a humble-bee. MODERN INNOVATIONS.-WIRT. A letter from Obadiah Squaretoes to "the Old Bachelor." Mr. Bachelor, It is the privilege of those who are injured, to complain;— Sir, you have stung me to the quick,-you have touched me where I was most vulnerable; and shall I not complain? Yes! and the world shall hear me too-but I am borne from my purpose by this heat: let me, with temper, tell my story. |