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a petulent, restless, meddling mind.

Either the mind

wears down the body by its continual motion; or else the body, not affording the mind sufficient house-room, keeps it continually in a state of fretfulness, tossing and worrying about, from the uneasiness of its situation. Whereas your round, sleek, fat, unwieldy periphery is ever attended by a mind like itself, tranquil, torpid, and at ease; and we may always observe, that your well-fed, robustious burghers are in general very tenacious of their ease and comfort; being great enemies to noise, discord, and disturbance: and surely none are more likely to study the public tranquillity than those who are so careful of their own. Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs?—No-no-it is your lean, hungry men, who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.

The divine Plato, whose doctrines are not sufficiently attended to by Philosophers of the present age, allows to every man three souls: one immortal and rational, seated in the brain, that it may overlook and regulate the body ➡a second consisting of the surly and irascible passions, which, like belligerent powers, lie encamped around the heart a third mortal and sensual, destitute of reason, gross and brutal in its propensities, and enchained in the belly, that it may not disturb the divine soul, by its ravenous howlings. Now, according to this excellent theory, what can be more clear, than that your fat alderman is most likely to have the most regular and well conditioned mind. His head is like a huge, spherical chamber, containing a prodigious mass of soft brains, whereon the rational soul lies softly and snugly couched, as on a feather bed; and the eyes, which are the windows of the bedchamber, are usually half closed, that its slumberings may not be disturbed by external objects. A mind thus comfortably lodged, and protected from disturbance, is manifestly most likely to perform its functions with regularity and ease. By dint of good feeding, moreover, the mortal and malignant soul, which is confined in the belly, and which, by its raging and roaring, puts the irritable soul in the neighbourhood of the heart in an intolerable passion,

and thus renders men crusty and quarrelsome when hungry-is completely pacified, silenced, and put to rest: whereupon a host of honest good-fellow qualities, and kindhearted affections, which had lain in perdue, slily peeping out of the loopholes of the heart, finding this Cerberus asleep, do pluck up their spirits, turn out one and all in their holiday suits, and gambol up and down the diaphraghm-disposing their possessor to laughter, good humour, and a thousand friendly offices towards his fellow mortals.

As a board of magistrates, formed on this model, think but very little, they are less likely to differ and wrangle about favourite opinions; and as they generally transact business upon a hearty dinner, they are naturally disposed to be lenient and indulgent in the administration of their duties. Charlemagne was conscious of this, and therefore (a pitiful measure, for which I can never forgive him,) ordered in his cartularies, that no judge should hold a court of justice, except in the morning, on an empty stomach. A rule which, I warrant, bore hard upon all the poor culprits in his kingdom. The more enlightened and humane generation of the present day have taken an opposite course, and have so managed that the aldermen are the best fed men in the community; feasting lustily on the fat things of the land, and gorging so heartily oysters and turtles, that in process of time they acquire the activity of the one, and the form, the waddle, and the green fat of the other. The consequence is, as I have just said; these luxurious feastings do produce such a dulcet equanimity and repose of the soul, rational and irrational, that their transactions are proverbial for unvarying monotony; and the profound laws, which they enact in their dozing moments, amid the labours of digestion, are quietly suffered to remain as dead letters, and never enforced, when awake. In a word, your fair round bellied burgomaster, like a full fed mastiff, dozes quietly at the house door, always at home, and always at hand to watch over its safety: but as to electing a lean, meddling candidate to the office, as has now and then been done, I

would as lief pút a greyhound to watch the house, or a race-horse to drag an ox-waggon.

The burgomasters then, as I have already mentioned, were wisely chosen by weight, and the schepens or assistant aldermen, were appointed to attend upon them, and help them to eat; but the latter in the course of time, when they have been fed and fattened into sufficient bulk of body and drowsiness of brain, became very eligible candidates for the burgomasters' chair; have fairly eaten themselves into office, as a mouse eats its way into a comfortable lodgment in a goodly blue nosed, skimmed milk, NewEngland cheese.

LETTER

FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN,

Captain of a Ketch, to Assem Hacchem, principal Slavedriver to his Highness the Bashaw of Tripoli.

THOU wilt learn from this letter, most illustrious disciple of Mahomet, that I have for some time resided in New-York, the most polished, vast, and magnificent city of the United States of America.—But what to me are its delights! I wander a captive through its splendid streets; I turn a heavy eye on every rising day that beholds me banished from my country. The christian husbands here lament most bitterly any short absence from home, though they leave but one wife behind to lament their departure;-what then must be the feelings of thy unhappy kinsman, while thus lingering at an immeasurable distance from three-and-twenty of the most lovely and obedient wives in all Tripoli! Oh, Allah! shall thy servant never again return to his native land, nor behold his beloved wives, who beam on his memory beautiful as the rosy morn of the East, and graceful as Mahomet's camel!

Yet beautiful, oh, most puissant slave-driver, as are my wives, they are far exceeded by the women of this country. Even those who run about the streets with bare arms and necks (et cetera), whose habiliments are too scanty to protect them either from the inclemency of the seasons, or the scrutinizing glances of the curious, and who it would seem belong to nobody, are lovely as the houris that people the elysium of true believers. If, then, such as run wild in the highways, and whom no one cares to appropiate, are thus beauteous; what must be the charms of those who are shut up in the seraglios, and never permitted to go abroad! Surely the region of beauty, the valley of the graces, can contain nothing so inimitably fair!

But, notwithstanding the charms of these infidel women, they are apt to have one fault, which is extremely troublesome and inconvenient. Wouldst thou believe it, Asem, I have been positively assured by a famous dervise (or doctor as he is here called), that at least one fifth of them have souls! Incredible as it may seem to thee, I am the more inclined to believe them in possession of this monstrous superfluity, from my own little experience, and from the information which I have derived from others. In walking the streets I have actually seen an exceeding good looking woman with soul enough to box her husband's ears to his heart's content, and my very whiskers trembled with indignation at the abject state of these wretched infidels. I am told, moreover that some of the women have soul enough to usurp the breeches of the men, but these I suppose are married and kept close; for I have not, in my rambles, met with any so extravagantly accoutred; others, I am informed, have soul enough to swear!-yea! by the beard of the great Omar, who prayed three times to each of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets of our most holy faith, and who never swore but once in his life they actually swear!

Get thee to the mosque, good Asem! return thanks to our most holy prophet that he has been thus mindful of the comfort of all true Mussulmen, and has given them

wives with no more souls than cats and dogs, and other necessary animals of the household.

Thou wilt doubtless be anxious to learn our reception in this country, and how we were treated by a people whom we have been accustomed to consider as unenlightened barbarians.

On landing we were waited upon to our lodgings, I suppose according to the directions of the municipallity, by a vast and respectable escort of boys and negroes, who shouted and threw up their hats, doubtless to do honour to the magnanimous Mustapha, captain of a ketch; they were somewhat ragged and dirty in their equipments, but this was attributed to their republican simplicity. One of them, in the zeal of admiration, threw an old shoe, which gave thy friend rather an ungentle salutation on one side of the head, whereat I was not a little offended, until the interpreter informed us that this was the customary manner in which great men were honoured in this country; and that the more distinguished they were, the more they were subjected to the attacks and peltings of the mob. Upon this I bowed my head three times, with my hands to my turban, and made a speech in Arabic Greek, which gave great satisfaction, and occasioned a shower of old shoes, hats, and so forth, that was exceedingly refreshing to us all.

Thou wilt not as yet expect that I should give thee an account of the laws and politics of this country. I will reserve them for some future letter, when I shall be more experienced in their complicated and seemingly contradictory nature.

This empire is governed by a grand and most puissant bashaw, whom they dignify with the title of President. He is chosen by persons, who are chosen by an assembly, elected by the people-hence the mob is called the sovereign people-and the country, free; the body politic doubtless resembling a vessel, which is best governed by its tail. The present bashaw is a very plain old gentlemansomething they say of a humourist, as he amuses himself with impalling butterflies and pickling tadpoles; he is rather declining in popularity, having given great offence

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