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sending an apology by the HORNET, we do assure mr. Jefferson, that there is nothing farther from our thoughts than the subversion of the gallic empire, or any attack on the interests, tranquillity, or reputation of the nation at large, which we seriously declare possesses the highest rank in our estimation. Nothing less than the national welfare could have induced us to trouble ourselves with this explanation; and in the name of the junto, I once more declare, that when we toast a frenchman, we merely mean one of these inconnus, who swarmed to this country, from the kitchens and barber's shops of Nantz, Bordeaux and Marseilles; played game of leap frog at all our balls and assemblies;-set this unhappy tonn hopping mad; -and passed themselves off on our tender hearted damsels for unfortunate noblemen-ruined in the revolution! such only can wince at the lash, and accuse us of severity; and we should be mortified in the extreme if they did not feel our well intended castigation.

3 Fair Penitent] The story of this play, if told in its native language, would exhibit a scene of guilt and shame, which no modest ear could listen to without shrinking with disgust; but, arrayed as it is in all the splendor of harmo nious, rich, and polished verse, it steals into the heart like some gay, luxurious, smooth faced villain, and betrays it insensibly to immorality and vice; our very sympathy is enlisted on the side of guilt; and the piety of Altamont, and the gentleness of Lavinia, are lost in the splendid debaucheries of the "gallant gay Lothario," and the blustering, hollow repentance of the fair Calista, whose sorrow reminds us of that of Pope's Heloise-“ I mourn the lover, not lament the fault." Nothing is more easy than to banish such plays from our stage.

toward capers, caprices and coquetries as it has done this year: I might have forgiven these vagaries, had they not completely knocked up my friend Langstaff; whose feelings are ever at the mercy of a weathercock, whose spirits sink and rise with the mercury of a barometer, and to whom an east wind is as obnoxious as a sicilian sirocco. He was tempted some time since, by the fineness of the weather, to dress himself with more than ordinary care and take his morning stroll; but before he had half finished his peregrination, he was utterly discomfited, and driven home by a tremendous squall of wind, hail, rain and snow; or, as he testily termed it, a most villanous congregation of vapors."

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This was too much for the patience of friend Launcelot; he declared he would humor the weather no longer in its whim-whams; and, according to his immemorial custom on these occasions, retreated in high dudgeon to his elbow-chair to lie in of the spleen and rail at nature for being so fantastical" confound the jade," he frequently exclaims, "what a pity nature had not been of the masculine instead of the feminine gender; the almanac makers might then have calculated with some degree of certainty."

When Langstaff invests himself with the spleen,

THE NEW YORK, PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS,

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and gives audience to the blue devils from his elbow-chair, I would not advise any of his friends to come within gunshot of his citadel with the benevolent purpose of administering consolation or amusement; for he is then as crusty and crabbed as that famous coiner of false money Diogenes. himself. Indeed his room is at such times inaccessible; and old Pompey is the only soul that can gain admission, or ask a question with impunity; the truth is, that on these occasions, there is not a straw's difference between them, for Pompey is as grum and grim and cynical as his master.

Launcelot has now been above three weeks in this desolate situation, and has therefore had but little to do in our last number. As he could not be prevailed on to give any account of himself in our introduction I will take the opportunity of his confinement, while his back is turned, to give a slight sketch of his character;-fertile in whimwhams and bachelorisms, but rich in many of the sterling qualities of our nature. Annexed to this. article our readers will perceive a striking likeness of my friend which was taken by that cunning rogue Will Wizard, who peeped through the key-hole and sketched it off as honest Launcelot sat by the fire, wrapped up in his flannel robe de chambre, and indulging in a mortal fit of the hyp.

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