Leech. Then, if Switzerland wouldn't do, I'd try Italy. My dear Leech, I've tried it over and over again, and what then?

Sir C.

Leech. Did not Rome inspire you?

Sir C. O, believe me, Tom, a most horrible hole! People talk so much about these things. There's the Colosseum, now; round, very round, a goodish ruin, enough; but I was disappointed with it. Capitol, tolerable high; and St. Peter's, marble, and mosaics, and fountains, dome certainly not badly scooped; but there was nothing in it. Leech. Come, Coldstream, you must admit we have nothing like St. Peter's in London.

Sir C. No, because we don't want it. If we wanted such a thing, of course we should have it. A dozen gentlemen meet, pass resolutions, institute, and in twelve months it would be run up. Nay, if that were all, we'd buy St. Peter's itself, and have it sent over.

Leech. Ha, ha! well said; you're quite right. What say you to beautiful Naples?

Sir C. Not bad; excellent water-melons, and goodish opera; they took me up Vesuvius; a horrid bore! It smoked a good deal, certainly, but altogether a wretched mountain; saw the crater; looked down, but there was nothing in it.

Leech. But the bay?

Sir C. Humbugs! nothing in any of them! You bore me. Is it possible that you can not invent something that would make my blood boil in my veins, my hair stand on end, my heart beat, my pulse rise; that would produce an

excitement, an emotion, a sensation, a palpitation? but,

no!

Leech. I've an idea!

Sir C. You? What is it?

Leech. Marry!

Sir C. Hum! well, not bad. There's novelty about the notion. It never struck me. O, but, no. I should be bored with the exertion of choosing. If a wife, now, could be had like a dinner, for ordering.

Leech. She can, by you. Take the first woman that comes. On my life, she'll not refuse twelve thousand pounds a year.

Sir C. Come, I don't dislike the project. I almost feel something like a sensation coming. I haven't felt so excited for some time. 'Tis a novel enjoyment! a surprise! I'll try it! FROM CHARLES MATHEWS.

CCLXIX. THE MODERN BELLE.

SHE sits in a fashionable parlor,
And rocks in her easy-chair,
She is dressed in silks and satins,
And jewels are in her hair;
She winks, and giggles, and simpers,
And simpers, and giggles, and winks;
And though she talks but little,

It is vastly more than she thinks.

She lies in bed of a morning

Till nearly the hour of noon,

Then comes down, snapping and snarling,
Because she's called too soon.

Her hair is still in papers,

Her cheeks still fresh with paint;

Remains of last night's blushes
Before she attempted to faint.

Her feet are so very little,

Her hands are so very white,

Her jewels so very heavy,
And her head so very light;

Her color is made of cosmetics;
Though this she never will own;
Her body's made mostly of cotton,
And her heart's made wholly of stone.

She falls in love with a fellow
Who swells with a foreign air;
He marries her for her money,
She marries him for his hair.
One of the very best matches,
Both are well mated in life;
She's got a fool for a husband,
And he's got a fool for a wife.

CCLXX. THE EMBARGO.

EMBARGO; a prohibition of the entrance or departure of all kinds of vessels. It is intended to destroy the commerce of an enemy, but often, as in the war of 1812, does great injury to the party ordering it.

I ASK in what page of the constitution you find the power of laying an embargo. Directly given, it is nowhere. Never before did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse like this, in a commercial nation. But it has been asked in debate, "Will not Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty, submit to such privations?" An embargo liberty was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our liberty was not so much a mountain nymph as a sea nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or she could run. her cradle. But an embargo liberty, a hand-cuffed liberty, liberty in fetters, a liberty traversing between the four sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster! Its parentage is all inland.

The ocean was

Is embargo independence? Deceive not yourselves! It is palpable submission! Gentlemen exclaim, "Great Britain smites us on one cheek!" And what does Adminis

says

And

tration? "It turns the other, also." Gentlemen say, "Great Britain is a robber; she takes our cloak." what Administration? "Let her take our coat also." France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of your commerce, and you yield it entirely! At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the majority wringing their hands, and exclaiming, "What shall we do? Nothing but an embargo will save us. Remove it, and what shall we do?"

It is not for me, a humble and uninfluential individual, at an awful distance from the predominant influences, to suggest plans of government. But, to my eye, the path of our duty is as distinct as the Milky Way; all studded with living sapphires, glowing with cumulating light. the path of active preparation; of dignified energy. the path of 1776! It consists not in abandoning our rights, but in supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist; on the ocean, as well as on the land.

It is

It is

But I shall be told, "This may lead to war. I ask, "Are we now at peace?" Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace; unless shrinking under the lash be peace. The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. The idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse! Abandonment of essential rights is worse!

FROM QUINCY.

CCLXXI.-POLITICAL CORRUPTION.

Or all the forms, in which corruption can present itself, the bribery of office is the most dangerous, because it assumes the guise of patriotism to accomplish its fatal sorcery. We are often asked, where is the evidence of corruption? Have you seen it? Do you expect to see it? You might as well expect to see the embodied forms of pestilence and famine stalking before you, as to see the latent operations of this insidious power. We may walk amid

it, and breathe its contagion, without being conscious of its presence.

All experience teaches us the irresistible power of temptation, when vice assumes the form of virtue. The great enemy of mankind could not have consummated his infernal scheme, for the seduction of our first parents, but for the disguise in which he presented himself. Had he appeared as the devil, in his proper form; had the spear of Ithuriel disclosed the naked deformity of the fiend of hell, the inhabitants of paradise would have shrunk with horror from his presence.

But he came as the insinuating serpent, and presented a beautiful apple, the most delicious fruit in all the garden. He told his glowing story to the unsuspecting victim of his guile; "It can be no crime to taste of this delightful fruit; it will disclose to you the knowledge of good and evil; it will raise you to an equality with the angels."

Such was the process. In this simple, but impressive narrative, we have the most beautiful and philosophical illustration of the frailty of man, and the power of temptation, that could possibly be exhibited. I have been forcibly struck with the similarity between our present situation and that of Eve, after it was announced that Satan was on the borders of paradise. We, too, have been warned, that the enemy is on our borders.

But, God forbid that the similitude should be carried any further. Eve, conscious of her innocence, sought temptation and defied it. The catastrophe is too fatally known to us all. She went "with the blessings of heaven on her head, and its purity in her heart," guarded by the ministry of angels; she returned, covered with shame, under the heavy denunciation of heaven's everlasting curse. It is innocence that temptation conquers. If our first parent, pure as she came from the hand of God, was overcome by the seductive power, let us not imitate her fatal rashness, seeking temptation when it is in our power to avoid it. Let us not vainly confide in our own infallibility.

FROM M'DUFFIE.