ber will be published. The price will depend on the size of the number, and must be paid on delivery. The publisher professes the same sublime contempt for money as his authors. The liberal patronage bestowed by his discerning fellow-citizens on various works of taste which he has published, has left him no inclination to ask for fur ther favors at their hands; and he publishes this work in the mere hope of equiting their bounty.*

1

FROM THE ELBOW-CHAIR OF

LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

We were a considerable time in deciding whether we should be at the pains of introducing our

* It was not originally the intention of the authors to insert the above address in the work; but, unwilling that a morceau so precious should be lost to posterity, they have been induced to alter their minds. This will account for any repetition of idea that may appear in the introductory essay.

selves to the public. As we care for nobody, and as we are not yet at the bar, we do not feel bound to hold up our hands and answer to our

names.

Willing, however, to gain at once that frank, confidential footing, which we are certain of ultimately possessing in this, doubtless, “best of all possible cities ;" and, anxious to spare its worthy inhabitants the trouble of making a thousand wise conjectures, not one of which would be worth a

46

tobacco-stopper," we have thought it in some degree a necessary exertion of charitable condescension to furnish them with a slight clue to the truth.

Before we proceed further, however, we advise every body, man, woman, and child, that can read, or get any friend to read for them, to purs chase this paper :-not that we write for money; for, in common with all philosophical wiseacres, from Solomon downwards, we hold it in supreme contempt. The public are welcome to buy this work, or not; just as they choose. If it be purchased freely, so much the better for the public and the publisher :-we gain not a stiver. If it be not purchased we give fair warning-we shall burn all our essays, critiques, and epigrams, in one promiscuous blaze; and, like the books of the

sybils, and the alexandrian library, they will be lost forever to posterity. For the sake, therefore of our publisher, for the sake of the public, and for the sake of the public's children to the nineteenth generation, we advise them to purchase our paper. We beg the respectable old matrons of this city, not to be alarmed at the appearance we make;-we are none of those outlandish geniusses who swarm in New-York, who live by their wits, or rather by the little wit of their neighbors; and who spoil the genuine honest american tastes of their daughters, with french slops and fricasseed sentiment,

We have said we do not write for money;neither do we write for fame :-we know too well the variable nature of public opinion, to build our hopes upon it-we care not what the public think of us; and we suspect, before we reach the tenth number, they will not know what to think of us. In two words-we write for no other earthly purpose but to please ourselves-and this we shall be sure of doing; for we are all three of us determined beforehand to be pleased with what we write. If, in the course of this work, we edify and instruct, and amuse the public; so much the better for the public :-but we frankly acknowl, edge that so soon as we get tired of reading our

own works, we shall discontinue them without the least remorse; whatever the public may think of it. While we continue to go on, we will go on merrily if we moralize, it shall be but seldom; and, on all occasions we shall be more solicitous to make our readers laugh than ery; for we are Laughing philosophers, and clearly of opinion, that wisdom, true wisdom, is a plump, jolly dame, who sits in her arm-chair, laughs right merrily at the farce of life-and takes the world as it goes.

We intend particularly to notice the conduct of the fashionable world;-nor in this shall we be governed by that carping spirit with which narrow-minded book-worm cynics squint at the little extravagancies of the ton; but with that liberal toleration which actuates every man of fashion. While we keep more than a Cerberus watch over the guardian rules of female delicacy and decorum-we shall not discourage any little sprightliness of demeanor, or innocent vivacity of character. Before we advance one line further we must let it be understood, as our firm opinion, void of all prejudice or partiality, that the ladies of New-York are the fairest, the finest, the most accomplished, the most bewitching, the most ineffable beings, that walk, creep, crawl, swim, fly, float, or vegetate in any or all of the four clements

and that they only want to be cured of certain whims, eccentricities, and unseemly conceits, by our superintending cares, to render them absolutely perfect. They will, therefore, receive a large portion of those attentions directed to the fashionable world;-nor will the gentlemen, who doze away their time in the circles of the haut-ton, escape our currying. We mean those stupid fellows who sit stock-still upon their chairs, without saying a word, and then complain how damned stupid it was at miss -'s party.

This department will be under the peculiar direction and control of ANTHONY EVERGreen, gent. to whom all communications on this subject are to be addressed. This gentleman, from his long experience in the routine of balls, teaparties, and assemblies, is eminently qualified for the task he has undertaken. He is a kind of patriarch in the fashionable world; and has seen generation after generation pass away into the silent tomb of matrimony while he remains unchangeably the same. He can recount the amours and courtships of the fathers, mothers, uneles and aunts, and even grandames, of all the belles of the present day; provided their pedigrees extend so far back without being lost in obscurity. As, however, treating of pedigrees is