in more utter abhorrence than what is usually termed a notable house-wife; a pestilent being, who, he protests, is the bane of good fellowship, and has a heavy charge to answer for the many offences committed against the ease, comfort and social enjoyments of sovereign man. He told me, not long ago, “that he had rather see one of the weird sisters flourish through his key-hole on a broomstick, than one of the servant maids enter the door with a besom."

My friend Launcelot is ardent and sincere in his attachments, which are confined to a chosen few, in whose society he loves to give free scope to his whimsical imagination; he, however, mingles freely with the world, though more as a spectator than an actor; and without an anxiety, or hardly a care to please, is generally received with welcome and listened to with complacency. When he extends his hand it is in a free, open, liberal style; and when you shake it, you feel his honest heart throb in its pulsations. Though rather fond of gay exhibitions, he does not appear so frequently at balls and assemblies since the introduction of the drum, trumpet, and tamborin; all of which he abhors on account of the rude attacks they make on his organs of hearing :-in short, such is his antipathy to noise, that though exceedingly

R

patriotic, yet, he retreats every fourth of July to Cockloft Hall in order to get out of the way of the hub-bub and confusion which make so considerable a part of the pleasure of that splendid anAiversary.

I intend this article as a mere sketch of Langstaff's multifarious character;-his innumerable whim-whams will be exhibited by himself, in the course of this work, in all their strange varieties; and the machinery of his mind, more intricate than the most subtle piece of clock-work, be fully explained. And trust me, gentlefolk, his are the whim-whams of a courteous gentleman full of most excellent qualities; honorable in his disposition, independent in his sentiments, and of unbounded good nature as may be seen through all his works.

ON STYLE.

BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

STYLE, a manner of writing; title; pin of a dial;

the pistil of plants.

STYLE, i.............style.

JOHNSON.

LINKUM FIDELIUS.

Now I would not give a straw for either of the above definitions, though I think the latter is by far the most satisfactory; and I do wish sincerely every modern numskull, who takes hold of a subject he knows nothing about, would adopt honest Linkuin's mode of explanation. Blair's Lectures on this article have not thrown a whit more light on the subject of my inquiries ;—they puzzled me just as much as did the learned and laborious expositions and illustrations of the worthy professor of

our college, in the middle of which I generally had the ill luck to fall asleep.

This same word style, though but a diminutive word, assumes to itself more contradictions, and significations, and eccentricities, than any monosyllable in the language is legitimately entitled to. It is an arrant little humorist of a word, and full of whim-whams, which occasions me to like it hugely; but it puzzled me most wickedly on my first return from a long residence abroad, having crept into fashionable use during my absence; and had it not been for friend Evergreen, and that thrifty sprig of knowledge, Jeremy Cockloft the younger, I should have remained to this day ignorant of its meaning.

Though it would seem that the people of all countries are equally vehement in the pursuit of this phantom style, yet in almost all of them there is a strange diversity in opinion as to what constitutes its essence; and every different class, like the pagan nations, adore it under a different form. In England, for instance, an honest cit packs up himself, his family and his style in a buggy or tim whisky, and rattles away on sunday with his fair partner blooming beside him; like an eastern bride, and two chubby children, squatting like chinese images at his feet. A baronet re

quires a chariot and pair ;-a lord must needs have a barouche and four ;-but a duke-oh! a duke cannot possibly lumber his style along under a coach and six, and half a score of footmen into the bargain. In China a puissant mandarin loads at least three elephants with style; and an overgrown sheep at the Cape of Good-Hope, trails along his tail and his style on a wheelbarrow. In Egypt, or at Constantinople, style consists in the quantity of fur and fine clothes a lady can put on without danger of suffocation; here it is otherwise, and consists in the quantity she can put off without the risk of freezing. A chinese lady is thought prodigal of her charms if she exposes the tip of her nose, or the ends of her fingers, to the ardent gaze of bye-standers: and I recollect that all Canton was in a buzz in consequence of the great belle miss Nangfous peeping out of window with her face uncovered! Here the style is to show not only the face, but the neck, shoulders, &c. ; and a lady never presumes to hide them except when she is not at home, and not sufficiently undressed to see company.

This style has ruined the peace and harmony of many a worthy household; for no sooner do they set up for style, but instantly all the honest old comfortable sans ceremonie furniture is