sion. Now, let's hug. By G-! I never was so happy But when did you in my life-but when wife died. my

get here? how came you here? what are you doing? heh? Where's Dick Hazard? and all the rest of them?Come, out with your budget!"

66

Stop a minute, most learned Doctor. I got here, four months ago; I came here, in the good ship Halcon ; I'm making my fortune rapidly; Dick Hazard is hung and rotten; and

"Dick hung? 'Gad, I thought as much! However, Dick was clever for some things, and had a most manly frame; I wish I had had the dissecting of him. Well! rest his bones.-And what's become of all the rest of our old cronies? O, my God! I've so many things to say! I shall burst before I know which to bring out first.”

"No matter, Doctor-let them all out at once; for, as the divine old man of Cos observes-though I can't repeat the Greek-, When the belly's filled with

"O, confound you! And so, you understood my last very appropriate quotation, heh ?”

"Understood it! To be sure I did: it was plain enough, in all conscience. You had better take care, Smith; if you are so ready always with your tumid quotations, you'll light on some scholar perchance, and then you'll be blown up with a vengeance for your indecorum."

"Well, this must answer for to-day, for we've kept Mrs. Nurse waiting, rather too long; and it wont do for me to lose any of my interest in that quarter.' He knocked

with his foot.

Mrs. Ptisan absolutely screamed, when she saw me out of bed and dressed. "Well already? Now, did you ever! La, Doctor Smith, you beat any thing I ever knew: I'm sure that Doctor Pockatease, you talk so much about, wasn't half so great a man."

The knight of the pestle, much to my amusement, immediately resumed his professional gravity.

66 Why,

to say,

truly, Mrs. Ptisan, as you observe, it is a most wonderful cure, and is owing in a great measure, no doubt that is is to be attributed, in a certain degree, to the excellent constitution of the patient; but still, I have a certain remedy, which, I may say without vanity, is known to no other member of the profession-and is almost a panacea. Providence has been pleased to entrust it to my poor hands, and I have, under its means, been blessed with my share of success; but still, all is not done. Here, Mr. Levis; you will take these powders immediately on awaking in the night-which you will not fail to do at half-past-twelve. My good friend, Mrs. Ptisan, will place a bowl of barley-water at your bed's side, so that you may reach it readily in the night. Stir the powders in, and drink directly. For, as De Graaf observes, "De Organis Generationis,"-Fac sis memor, care Jeremia, ut in matulam tuam hæc medicamenta conjicias. Nescio ullum narthecium magis aptum.-Ah! risum tene, mi amice; habenda est ratio famæ

fidei committo.-Tenes ?"

nostræ. Ego me tuæ

The nurse was in raptures at this display of learning. She lifted up her hands and eyes. "Did you ever!"

As for myself, it was as much as I could do to refrain from laughing at the gravity which the doctor affected. Wishing, however, to impress Mrs. Ptisan with the same respect for my acquirements that she showed for my friend's, I answered," The caution which De Graaf gives is certainly just-and shall be attended to; for, as Aurelius Celsus remarks, in his work "De Medecina," -Fac sine cura sis, doctissime Doctor. Curabo. Tu me non occidisti, et beneficiarum magis sum memor quam ut celebretatis tuæ arcem hostibus prodeam."

"Now, did you ever!" cried my nurse," I never saw such learned gentlemen in my life."

"Sat est," said the doctor, keeping up the joke: "Jam. que vale, mi Jeremia,"

"Et tu, clinice peritissime, Hippocratis discipulorum omnium eruditissime, interpretisque ejus Dureti studiosis. sime, tu bene vale."

"Did you ever!" said my nurse, as she opened the door for Smith: "Lord! I do like those issimes so!-rootitissime! stoolysissime!-This way, Doctor."

AND holding forth against what? Against the taste of the day. O, I hate a reformer! cries one. And so do I, says another. But what if he reform in his own de. fence? O, that alters the case! exclaims the one. Most essentially, subjoins the other.

Now, the case stands simply thus. Jeremy Levis, Autobiographer pro tem., has dared to insert in these his memoirs several very naughty chapters-naughty, for as much as certain characters figure therein in dresses that suffer their natural shape to appear, in open contempt of the canons of the day, which expressly declare, that no gentleman shall be countenanced in decent society, who does not encourage the cotton trade by thrusting half-apound of wadding under his axillæ, and that no lady shall be authorized to flirt, except she advocate the theory of Monboddo, and at the same time assert her just right to be ranked a species of the genus simia, by mounting, on the saddle of her second lumbar vertebra, a thing, in shape a freemason's apron tied to a sausage, ycleped tournure ; and, in consequence of the said naughty chapters, he, the aforesaid Jeremy Levis, stands in imminent peril of being barked at by every shag-eared mongrel critic, who, be

cause forsooth he follows at a lady's heels, thinks himself the defender of her delicacy, or, because he himself has neither scent nor speed, believes all other dogs unfitted for the chase, or still better, who is ready to do any dirty office for a plate of bones, and therefore, as Swift says, will growl the more, the less he finds to pick.

Alas for thee, ill-fated Jeremy! thou wert warned of this, when Peleg rapped thee on the knuckles for making dog's-ears in thy primer; and now thy hour is come, and 'curs of low degree' shall yelp at thee, and snap at thine unwittingly offending legs, because, forgetting that little brutes like them can feel indignities as well as greater beasts, thou hast tumbled them over in the dust, or thrust them into the kennel!

-But, Levis, honest Levis, you are lapsing into rhapsody. You forget, that, by your own confession, you stand arraigned at the joint tribunal of Common-Sense and Good-Taste for naughtiness in chapter-making, and other like offences. The case has been stated. The evidence has long ago been given on both sides. We will suppose the jury, packed of 'little dogs and all,' have found you guilty.' What have you to say why sentence of the law should not be passed upon you, that you be banished from all ladies' centre-tables, for low-life scenes and vulgar conversations?

Hear me then. I stand accused (as well as I can learn) of vulgar writing,―of bringing into this, my histo ry, men in pea-jackets, women without stays,-of making them act before the reader in some drunken tavernscene, or even lower,-and, worst of all, of introducing them in language coarse as the clothes I put upon them. I will not take these points up separately, and plead to each, but join them all together, under one vile name-vulgarity, and sometimes speak of them as one, sometimes examine a particular part, as shall seem to me most fitting.. Now, let me ask-how is society composed? Merely of men who call their breeches inexpressibles, and wo

men who blush to hear such queer things spoken of as legs? Or are these embodied spiritualities mixed with beings of a coarser loam-vile, shocking men, who clothe their naked persons with a shirt, and bear, in the fess point of their face argent, a nose statant-gardant of the same, crined sable in the nostrils gules,-old-fashioned women, who sleep in nightcaps, and cannot ride unveiled nor.sigh "My horse perspires! O, che bestia!"? And then, where shall we seek for humour? In the ball-room of a city belle, where feet and fiddlesticks, bass-viols and base hearts, where all things instrumental, move by mea. sure, save the tongue! Or in the bar-room of a country innkeeper, where jokes and jorums, thick pitchers and thick skulls, where all things spiritual, are cracked uncounted, though not without account? The answer "We grant it," you will say, "good Jeremy, just as you would have it. We have no objection to the scenes themselves, they suit the promise on your title-page; but wherefore need the language be so coarse?" Why not say at once, sweet Reader, "Good, modest, gentlemanly Jeremy, give us the bottle-we like it well; but throw away the spirit?" If you really have, my Reader, an infant's innocent fondness for glass, you may suck as many empty bottles as you please; but you must do it in other company; for when you dine at my table, I shall feast you with the richest wines the cellar of my brain can furnish.- -But, to be serious :

Had I introduced these vulgar characters conversing with the ease and finish of polite persons, I should have erred not only against the truth of my history, but even against the spirit of the work considered as a mere novel. Can the reader suppose for one moment, one single moment, that I delight in such language as is used by Mrs. Coming, and the Fox family, and Mr. and Mrs. Spits? Wit, or humour, will, with those who relish it, often excuse great grossness: but nothing can be more disgusting than insipid vulgarity :-As in chalybeate waters we disregard