LOVE’S ELYSIUM.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MATTHISSON BY WILLIAM PITT PALMER.

GANGUERNET: OR, ‘A CAPITAL JOKE.’

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOHN HUNTER.

Mine is called Ganguernet: I say mine, for you have all had yours; every one, at least once in his life-time, has met with one of those little fat, ruddy, burly men, with straight close-cropped hair, low forehead, grey eyes, broad nose, puffed-up cheeks, the neck between the shoulders, the shoulders in the stomach, the stomach upon the legs; a sort of a Punch figure, rolling, bawling, laughing, hallooing; one of those fellows who come stealthily behind you, clap their hands on your head, and cry out suddenly: ‘Who’s this?’ Who pull away your chair at the moment you are going to sit down; who snatch from you your handkerchief just when you wish to use it; and who, on these occasions, when you look at them with an angry air, answer you with a broad grin, and a stare of imperturbable assurance: ‘A capital joke!’

You have had yours; and mine is named Ganguernet. My first acquaintance with him was at Rheims. He was a complete adept in his profession, and as a regular joke-player, master of all the tricks of his trade. Well skilled was he in the art of attaching a piece of meat to the bell-rope of a porter’s lodge, so that all the wandering dogs about town would snap at the tempting bait, and awaken the mystified domestics ten times a night. Very expert was he also at cutting tradesmen’s signs in two pieces, and substituting one for another. On one occasion he took the sign of a hair-dresser, cut it in two, and added the latter part to that of one of my neighbours; so that it read as follows: Monsieur Roblot lets out carriages and false toupées, after the Paris fashion.

But if M. Ganguernet was not the most agreeable companion in the city, still less so was he in the country, where indeed his presence, to me at least, was always a perfect nuisance. He knew how to scatter the hair, adroitly clipped from a brush, between the sheets of a friend, so that the victim, before he had been a quarter of an hour in bed, would become furious with the itching. He would pierce the partition between two sleeping apartments, so as to pass through it a piece of twine which he had cunningly fastened to your bed-clothes, and then, when he found that you were asleep, he would gently pull the string, until the covering was all drawn down to your feet. You awake half-frozen, for Ganguernet always chooses a cold damp night for this trick, draw up the covering, wrap yourself carefully up, and very innocently resume your slumbers; then Ganguernet, gently pulling his cord, again strips you naked; again you are benumbed with cold; and when you begin to utter imprecations in the dark, his detestable voice is heard bawling through the hole: ‘What a capital joke!’

Did Ganguernet chance to fall in with one of those simple-minded individuals, whose countenances invite mystification, he would steal from him during his sleep his coat and pantaloons, whose dimensions with needle and thread he would contrive greatly to diminish. He would then awaken his victim, begging him to dress himself as soon as possible, and join a hunting-party. The unsuspecting subject of the joke, thus suddenly roused, would try to put on his pantaloons, but could not get into them. ‘Good Heavens!’ exclaims Ganguernet, with affected astonishment; ‘why, what is the matter, my dear Sir?—you are terribly swollen!’ ‘Am I?’ ‘You are indeed, prodigiously!’ ‘Do you really mean it?’ ‘I may be mistaken, but come dress yourself, and let us go down, and see what the others say.’

‘But I cannot get on my clothes.’

‘Ah! that’s it, you are so puffed up. It must be a thundering attack of the dropsy!’

And this would continue, the poor fellow, pale and trembling, in vain endeavoring to get on his clothes, until the tormentor, with a hideous chuckle, would come out with his famous sentence: ‘Ha! ha! a capital joke!’

There was one of his tricks which appeared to me to be truly abominable. He played it upon a person reputed to be a brave man, but who was nevertheless horribly frightened. One night, after getting snugly into bed, this gentleman felt something cold and slimy along side of him, he touched it with his foot; it seemed a round elongated body; he placed his hand upon it; it was a serpent coiled upon itself! In an ecstacy of terror, he leaped from the bed with a cry of disgust and horror, when Ganguernet made his appearance, shaking his fat sides and roaring out: ‘What a capital joke!’ It was an eel-skin filled with water, that had caused the panic. The enraged gentleman would have broken the head of the joker, but Ganguernet throwing a pitcher of water over the sans-culotte sufferer, made his escape, yelling out at the top of his voice: ‘A capital joke!—a capital joke!’ The master of the house and his guests came running in at the outcry, and with much difficulty succeeded in pacifying the mystified individual; assuring him that Ganguernet, though fond of fun, was in the main a charming good fellow, a pleasant boon companion, and one without whom, especially in the country, it was impossible to drive away ennui.

Our readers may perhaps think with us, that, on the contrary, this man was one of those insufferable beings who are constantly intruding upon the pleasures and comforts of others; like a dog in a game of nine-pins, overturning with his paws all the arrangements of your joys and sorrows; more insupportable, and more difficult to get rid of than the dog, they lie in ambush to pounce upon you, and disconcert by a word or a trick the feelings you may enjoy, or the projects you intend.

Among characters of this description, there are some whom their common-place attempts at wit consign to contempt. These performers confine themselves to vulgar and stale jokes. To thrust the head through the paper window-pane of a cobbler, and ask him the address of a minister of finances, or an archbishop; to stretch a cord across a staircase, so as to cause those who descend to take, in the words of a punster, a voyage sur la rein, or ‘a voyage upon the Rhine;’ to wake up a notary in the middle of the night, and send him in great haste to draw up a will for a client, whom he finds in good health; these and a thousand other silly pranks of the same nature, are the stock in trade of a jester; and no one knew them better than did Ganguernet.

He had, moreover, invented some original tricks, which had given him a colossal reputation among the admirers of this branch of the fine arts. The only truly witty one I ever knew him to perpetrate, took place at a country-house where a large party of us were assembled. Among the guests, Ganguernet had singled out a lady of some thirty years, rather fantastic in her manners and appearance, who was doatingly fond of Parisian elegance, and who preferred the pale face of a well-looking youth of rather shallow intellect, to the coarse, purple visage of Ganguernet. Our humourist endeavored in vain to render this youth ridiculous in the eyes of the lady, who regarded his simplicity as a poetical absence of mind, and his credulity as an indication of sincerity and honest good faith. One evening, after a brisk defence of the pale-faced youth on the part of the lady, which was listened to by Ganguernet with a patience and a peculiar expression of the eye which boded no good, we had all retired to our apartments. In about half an hour, the house resounded with loud outcries of ‘fire! fire!’ which seemed to proceed from the hall upon the ground-floor. Every one hastened thither, men and women half-dressed, or half-undressed, which ever you please. They entered pell-mell, candlestick in hand, and there found Ganguernet stretched upon a sofa. To the reiterated questions that were put him as to the cause of the clamor, he answered not a word; but taking the pale-faced young man by the hand in a very solemn manner, and leading him up to the fine lady, gravely said to her: ‘I have the honor, Madam, of presenting to you the most poetic genius of the company in a cotton night-cap.’ We all burst into a shout of laughter, but the lady never forgave Ganguernet, nor the cotton night-cap.

All the jokes which Ganguernet played, however, were not prompted by vengeance; a spirit of fun merely being the grand principle of most of his tricks. Before we come to the occurrence which showed this man to me in his true colors, I must relate a few more of the humorous pranks in which he took the greatest pride. Opposite his residence at Rennes there dwelt a worthy pair of venerable citizens, who were the sole occupants of a small house, which was their only possession. Once a week this honest couple were in the habit of dining, and having a little game of piquet with a relation, who resided at some distance from their abode. On these occasions they were usually regaled with curds and whey, which they moistened with sparkling cider; and not unfrequently a bowl of punch concluded the repast; so that the worthy pair commonly returned home about eleven o’clock, singing and staggering along in a state of happy elevation.

On a certain fatal Sunday evening, these good folks returned to their abode, both of them pretty much, ‘how came you so.’ They arrived at the door of their next neighbour, which they recognized, and then proceeded on ten paces farther, which was just the distance to their own door. The husband, after fumbling in his pocket for the key of the street-door, pulled it out, and sought the key-hole; but no key-hole was to be found. ‘What has become of the key-hole?’ cried he. ‘You have drank too much cider, Monsieur Larquet,’ said his wife; ‘you are looking for the key-hole, and we are still before the wall of neighbour Bompart.’

‘That is true,’ replied Monsieur Larquet; ‘we must go a few paces farther.’ They walked on; but this time they went too far, for as they had before recognized the door of their right-hand neighbor, they now found themselves in front of that of their neighbor on the left hand. Their own door ought to be between these two doors. They return, groping along the wall until they come to a door, which to their consternation they again find to be that of their right-hand neighbor! The honest couple become alarmed about the soundness of their wits, and begin to suspect that they must certainly both be tipsy. They recommence their inspections from the door of their neighbor on the right, and again come to the door of their neighbor on the left. They constantly find these two doors, but not a vestige of their own: their door has disappeared—vanished! Who could have taken away their door? Terror seizes them; they ask each other if they have become demented; and dreading the ridicule which would be cast upon honest citizens who could not find their own street-door, they grope about for more than an hour, feeling, poking, inspecting, measuring; but alas! there is no door; there is nothing but a wall, an unknown wall, an implacable wall, a desperate wall! At length, terror completely overpowers them; they utter loud cries, and call lustily for assistance. The neighbors are attracted by the noise, and after some time, it is ascertained that the door of the distracted couple has been carefully bricked up, and plastered over; and when all are trying to discover who could have played such a pitiful trick upon these honest people, Ganguernet, who from an opposite window, in company with some kindred spirits, had been enjoying the tribulation and despair of Monsieur and Madame Larquet, Ganguernet shouts out his everlasting refrain: ‘A capital joke!’ But, answered the neighbors, these poor folks will take their death of cold.

‘Bah!’ replies he; ‘a capital joke!’

The incensed neighbors petitioned the king’s attorney to moderate Monsieur Ganguernet’s strong inclination to play his mischievous pranks; and the magistrate sent our hero to prison for some days, in spite of his skilful defence, which consisted in incessantly repeating: ‘A capital joke!—what a capital joke, Mr. Magistrate!’

Notwithstanding his excessive vanity, Ganguernet did not, however, make boast of all his exploits; and there was one, the authorship of which he constantly denied, possibly in consequence of a threat that was held out of cutting off the author’s ears, should he be detected. The trick in question was prompted by the contempt in which he was held in a certain aristocratic circle; and the subject was no less a personage than an ancient dame of high birth, and great pretensions, who mingled in the most fashionable society of Rennes.

Among other customs of the old school, which this lady retained, were the following: First, that of never mixing in the society of those of plebeian descent, such as Ganguernet: and secondly; that of always being carried in a sedan-chair by porters, when she went abroad. One evening she went to a ball, given by the first president of the court of assizes, a ball at which Ganguernet was also present. She left about midnight, carried as usual in her sedan-chair through a pelting shower of rain. At the moment she got under one of those loop-holes in the eaves-gutters, through which the rain pours down into the street in long dashing cascades, two or three shrill whistles were heard on the right and left hand. Immediately four men in masks made their appearance, at sight of whom the porters, abandoning their charge, took to their heels; but at the moment when the noble dame believed herself on the point of being assassinated, a terrible dash of cold water upon her head took away her breath, and almost deprived her of consciousness. The top of the chair had disappeared as if by magic, and the gutter poured its contents directly into the vehicle, the occupant of which in vain attempted to force open the door. She beat and thumped against it with fury, mounted the seat, and like an incarnate fiend, invoked the divine wrath upon the vile miscreants, who were giving her such a cruel shower-bath; and who only replied to her invectives by profound bows, and the most humble salutations. The worst part of this wicked trick was, that the lady wore hair-powder, and the mystifiers carried umbrellas.

My acquaintance with Ganguernet continued about ten years. In the low and vulgar circles of society which he was fond of frequenting, he was held up as the most jovial, the best-natured, and the most amusing fellow in the world; although there were some, whose sense of propriety and moral feelings were not entirely destroyed, who held him in merited contempt. For my own part, I always had a dread of the man. That odious smile, forever hanging on those large red lips, singularly annoyed me; that imperturbable gayety, exhibited on all occasions of life, troubled me like the constant presence of a hideous phantom; that phrase, which he appended like a moral to every thing he did, that detested phrase, ‘A capital joke,’ sounded in my ears as doleful and sombre as the Trappists’ motto, ‘Brother, we must die!’

There was a fatality about the man; and it was destined that a life should be sacrificed to his mad propensity for mischief. A day came, on which his famous words, ‘A capital joke!’ was to be pronounced over a tomb.

On the eve of my departure from Rennes, some friends invited me to join a hunting-party, of which I learned that Ganguernet was to make one. This name took from me in advance half the pleasure I had anticipated. I however repaired early in the morning to the house of one of our friends, Ernest de B——. On my arrival I found Ganguernet there with some others of the party. Ernest had just finished a letter, which he sealed, directed, and placed upon the chimney-piece. Ganguernet, in his usual inquisitive and impertinent manner, took it up, and read the direction. ‘Ah ha!’ said he; ‘so you correspond with your pretty cousin, do you?’

‘Yes,’ said Ernest, with an air of indifference; ‘I have informed her that we intend visiting her chateau this evening, at about seven o’clock, to take dinner there. There are fifteen of us I think, and we shall run some risk of having but poor fare, if she does not get timely notice.’

Ernest rang for a servant, and gave him the letter, without any of us noticing that Ganguernet disappeared for a moment with him. We set off on our expedition. While engaged in the chase, it so happened that Ganguernet and myself took one side of the plain on which we were hunting, while the rest of the party pursued their sport on the other.

‘We shall have some fun this evening,’ said he to me.

‘How so?’ replied I.

‘Would you believe it? I have given a louis to the servant that he should not carry the letter to its address.’

‘And have you taken it?’

‘No, pardieu! I told him we were going to have a little joke this evening, and that he must carry the letter to the lady’s husband. He is sitting this moment as president of the court of assizes, and when he finds that he is going to have fifteen stout fellows, with keen appetites, at his house this evening, he will be in a devil of a rage. He is as miserly as Harpagon; and the idea of our laying his kitchen and wine-cellar under contribution will put him in such a humor, that he will have no scruple in condemning a dozen innocent men, so that he may reach his country-house in time to prevent the pillage.’

‘If this is the case,’ said I to Ganguernet, ‘it seems to me to be a very malicious jest.’

‘Bah! a capital joke! And the best of it will be when we all arrive at the chateau. The others, ravenous with hunger and thirst, will expect to find there an excellent supper. But there will be nothing—absolutely nothing!’

‘And do you think, Sir,’ replied I, ‘that this will be any pleasanter to me than to the rest of the party? And you yourself, will you not be one of the principal dupes of your frolic?’

‘Let me alone for that! Look you here; I’ve got a cold fowl and a bottle of Bordeaux in my game-bag, and you shall have half.’

‘I thank you,’ said I, ‘but I had rather find Ernest, and notify him of your trick.’

‘Ah! good heavens! my dear Sir,’ said Ganguernet, ‘you cannot take a joke.’

I left him, and apprising our friends of the affair, inquired where I could find Ernest. I was told that he had gone in the direction of the chateau of his cousin, toward which I proceeded, intending to give Madame de L—— notice of the trick of Ganguernet. At a turn of the road I perceived Ernest at a distance, going toward the chateau. I increased my speed in order to overtake him, and made so much haste that I arrived almost at the same moment with him, so that he had just passed the gate as I reached it. As I was about entering, the gate was violently pulled to, and immediately I heard the report of a pistol, and then a voice cried out: ‘Villain! since I have missed you, defend yourself!’

I hastily sprang to a grating in the wall, about the height of my head, which opened into the court-yard, and there witnessed a frightful spectacle. The husband, sword in hand, was attacking Ernest with desperate fury. ‘Ah! you love her and she loves you!’ cried he, in a voice hoarse with passion; ‘you love her, do you? and she loves you! Your turn first, and then hers!’

The letter from Ernest to his cousin, conveyed by the malicious interference of Ganguernet to her husband, had apprised him of a secret which had remained hidden for more than four years; and before redressing the wrongs of society as a magistrate, the president of the court had hastened to avenge his own as a husband.

In vain I cried, in vain I called by name the two cousins. Monsieur de L—— with blind fury drove Ernest from one corner of the court to another. Suddenly a window opened, and Madame de L——, pale, with dishevelled hair, and terror painted on her countenance, appeared.

‘Leonie!’ cried Ernest, ‘withdraw!’

‘No! let her remain!’ exclaimed Monsieur de L——, ‘she is a prisoner; you need not fear that she will come to separate us.’ And he again rushed upon his cousin with such fury that the fire flew from their swords.

‘It is I—it is I who deserve death!’ cried Madame de L——; ‘kill me!’

I added my cries to theirs. I shouted, I shook the grating. I tried to scale the wall, when suddenly, urged on by despair, bewildered, distracted, Madame de L—— threw herself from the window and fell between her lover and her husband. The latter, completely beside himself with passion, directed his sword toward her. But Ernest turned it aside, and in his turn casting off all restraint, exclaimed with vehemence: ‘Madman! would you kill her? Well, then—defend yourself!’ And immediately he commenced a violent assault upon his antagonist.

I could do nothing to separate them; neither could Madame de L——. The unfortunate woman had broken a limb in the fall, and lay groaning upon the pavement. It was a dreadful combat. Nothing can express the violent terror which seized me. Already the blood of the two cousins began to flow, which only served to increase their rage. I had succeeded with some difficulty in climbing to the top of the wall, and was about to leap into the court, when I perceived some of our friends approaching. Ganguernet was at their head; he drew near, calling to me:

‘Halloo! what’s this? Why, you bawl like a man getting flayed; we heard you a quarter of a league off. What the devil is the matter?’

At the sight of this detested wretch, I rushed upon him, seized him by the throat, and forcing him violently against the grating, I cried to him in my turn: ‘Look there, miserable jester!—‘a capital joke!’ is it not?—a ‘capital joke!”

Monsieur de L——, pierced through the heart by a plunge of his antagonist’s sword, was lying by the side of his wife.

Ernest has left France to die in a foreign land. Madame de L—— committed suicide the day after this horrible duel.

‘A CAPITAL JOKE!’

APOSTROPHE TO AN OLD HAT.

BY JOHN G. SAXE.

St. Alban’s, Vermont.

THE COUNTRY.

There is something very pleasant in the country, particularly about Thanksgiving-time, when families gather together from north, south, east and west, around the huge roast turkey, and many pairs of jaws masticate vigorously in gratitude for blessings received. At this season of the year the bird which was fortunate enough to excite the enthusiasm of Brillat-Savarin, and to be the theme of many chapters in his immortal ‘Physiologie,’ is the emblem of our republic. A bald eagle indeed! Who ever heard of a roast eagle? But a turkey:

What native American does not respond Amen! from the depths of his stomach to these appetizing verses of Beamount and Fletcher? But higher far rises the gastronomic phrenzy of the Travelled, who have known the bird, grand in his stuffing of chestnuts, sublime when swelling with the bliss-bringing truffle!

And the country is at all seasons a pleasant idea, if properly considered; but beware of the man of one idea, if that one be Country, as you would of the homo unius libri. If you cannot distinguish timothy from clover, and beets from carrots; if, agriculturally speaking, you don’t ‘know beans;’ he will annihilate you with his rural wisdom. For his whole existence is in the soil. He worships things under the earth. Dust he is, and to dust he shall return; (the sooner the better!) He prattles of potatoes, talks of turnips, harangues about horse-radish, knows no composition except compost. Speak to him of manners, and he will answer of manures. Like the Egyptians, he worships a bull; and has all the fondness of Pythagoras for beans. His only literature is Liebig’s Animal Chemistry; his lighter reading, the Cultivator and the New-England Farmer.

Such an one was whilom a citizen with protruding abdomen and white cravat, who having realized a something in business, exchanges the counter for the country; buys his acre or two, erects his manor-house, with a grass-plat in front and a tree or two behind; and with a little straw hat on his head, a linen coat on his back, and a hoe in his hand, saunters around his limited possessions, as leisurely and as frequently as an old horse in a mill, perfectly content with his place, his plans, and himself.

Call not upon him unless with double-soled boots and strapless trowsers; and choose a cool day for the visit, if it must be made; for not over ‘hill and dale,’ but over rock and gully you must march; through ploughed land and through weeds, through bowers of grape-vines and bosquets of Lima beans; scratched by the thorns of the gooseberry and brushed by the long dew-covered leaves of the Indian corn. Numberless shrubs from a foot to eighteen inches in height he will point out to you, and name them with long names: ‘This is the Prota Goras,’ ‘and that the Demo Creitus;’ shrubs which, if you had encountered them when alone, you might have eradicated as weeds, in a moment of generous activity. And when muddy, breathless and dripping, you reach the highest point of his possessions, he will wave his hand majestically over some twenty feet of grass, and pointing to three trees and a white fence in the distance, talk of scenery!

Nevertheless, convinced as we are that the taste for country-places is on the increase, we think it advisable to suggest a few hints for the instruction of the aspirants after rural felicity. Saratoga and the like are no longer indispensable places of resort, but it is indispensable to be out of town for three months of the year, if you would not be out of fashion during the remaining nine. Select then a bare and stony spot, for as your object is employment, the more improvements you can make the better you will be pleased, as you take it for granted of course that improvements cost almost nothing. On the highest part of this ground you will build your house: an airy situation is invaluable in warm weather; and then a view is so desirable. In the choice of a style of architecture some difficulty arises. You may either have a clap-board Parthenon, with Corinthian columns in front and Doric columns in the rear, painted white, to flash back the rays of the sun, or which is perhaps more fashionable, a Gothic cottage, with steep roof, rustic pillars, fantastic barge-boards, and numerous pinnacles painted brown, with oak-stained doors. This style looks well in the situation we have described; the absence of trees bringing out more fully the beauties of the architecture. It is attended with one or two inconveniences; scarcely however, worth mentioning: Gothic windows always leak, and the sloping roof makes the second story a little ovenish in temperature, and garrety in smell. Whichever of the two styles you adopt, you must not fail to refer your plans to some bustling little architect, who will be sure to write articles about himself in one of the weeklies, and will probably give a drawing of your house, and call you the ‘intelligent, gentlemanly, and high-minded proprietor.’ After you have removed the stones, manured the ground, and planted grass, you will have a lawn; and after you have dug deep holes and set out tall thin consumptive trees, you have a wood. Secure the whole with white fences; throw rustic bridges over the impassable streams; sprinkle red dahlias and tiger-lilies here and there; buy a bull-dog to set on any small child who may be reckless enough to trespass; and lo! you have a country-seat as well as a town-house, and can invite your city friends to fill your one spare room in regular rotation.

In the important matter of a name, you must decide for yourself; but surely with Walter Scott and Lord Byron and the innumerable What-d’ye-call-’em dales, Thingumbob brooks, and So-and-so woods, to choose from, you can have no difficulty in fixing upon a suitable one.

But, says an amateur rustic, I have no fondness for floriculture, horticulture, or agriculture; what am I to do? Buy a horse, and take a gallop of some twenty miles or so, and if the horse does not shy you off, or bolt you off, or kick you off, and you do not fall off, or he does not fall under you, you will probably arrive at home safe; but as you walk from the stable to the house, you will quote from George Colman’s parody of the Lady of the Lake:

Have you a fondness for fire-arms? Then procure a gun and dog, and sally forth before day-light. Walk five miles through swamp and thicket without starting a bird. Sky cloudless; heat intense. Suddenly dog’s tail begins to beat half-seconds; up whirrs a bird, who is out of sight in a moment; so is the dog, who indulges in an animated chase. You shout yourself hoarse; at length succeed in catching dog, and try to thresh him with decayed sticks. A little while after, dog comes to a point again. This time he stands beautifully. You walk slowly up, trembling with excitement, both barrels cocked. Why don’t the bird get up? You glance inquiringly around, and at length discern a wood-turtle fast asleep near the stump of a tree. Then, if an irascible man, you curse. So passes the day. Now and then a bird springs; off fly both of your barrels, aimed at vacancy, and hurling showers of No. 8 into space; and you arrive at home late in the afternoon, sore-footed from much travel and stiffness of boots, and alas! without a feather except a small quail which your dog caught in his mouth.

No more shooting? Try fishing then. Sit all day on a rock watching your float, or cork, or dobber, as the Dutch boys call it, dance merrily over the waves, occasionally disappearing under the surface, when the hook catches a weed. Does not even this suit you? Then, dear friend, buy a boat of from four to six tons burthen, properly rigged and ballasted; also buy a red shirt, a small low-crowned straw hat, some tar to smear over your hands, and learn the first stanza of ‘The sea! the sea!’ to make every thing seem more nautical and ship-shape. Hoist jib and mainsail, and venture out. After you have drifted a mile or two, it will fall a dead calm, and the boat (Gazelle? Wave? Gull?) will float two or three hours, the sun flashing back from the glassy surface of the water, burning your face to the color of bricks, and almost frying the eyes out of your head. Then is the time to sing ‘The sea! the sea!’ and to take some Monongahela to still the qualmishness you begin to experience. At length the wind rises, and your boat, after many yawings, dashes away before it. Suddenly, without any voluntary or visible agency on your part, the main-boom sweeps from one side to the other, carrying your hat overboard in its passage, and dipping the gunwale deep under water. Agitated by this significant gesture, you steer straight for the wharf. In attempting to round-to, the bowsprit comes in contact with the piles and renounces its allegiance to the bow. The boat drifts away from the landing, and finally deposits you high and dry on the beach.

What! Disgusted with this, too? Then take our advice, and like a reasonable man, stay in town.

TO AN EVENING CLOUD.

BY A YOUNG LADY.

B.