Since this "thief of the world" has made off with your bloom,

And left you some score of stale years in its room-
Has deprived you of all those gay dreams, that would dance
In your brains at fifteen, and your bosoms entrance;
And has forced you almost to renounce in despair
The hope of a husband's affection and care---
Since such is the case, and a case rather hard!
Permit one who holds you in special regard
To furnish such hints in your loveless estate
As may shelter your names from detraction and hate.
Too often our maidens, grown aged I ween,
Indulge to excess in the workings of spleen;

And at times, when annoy'd by the slights of mankind,
Work off their resentment-by speaking their mind:
Assemble together in snuff-taking clan,

And hold round the tea-urn a solemn divan.

A convention of tattling-a tea party hight,

Which, like meeting of witches, is brew'd up at night: Where each matron arrives, fraught with tales of surprise, With knowing suspicion and doubtful surmise;

Like the broomstick whirl'd hags that appear in Macbeth, Each bearing some relic of venom or death,

"To stir up the toil and to double the trouble,

That fire may burn, and that caldron may bubble."

When the party commences, all starch'd and all glum, They talk of the weather, their corns, or sit mum: They will tell you of cambric, of ribands, of lace, How cheap they were sold and will name you the place. They discourse of their colds, and they hem, and they cough, And complain of their servants to pass the time off; Or list to the tale of some doting mamma

How her ten weeks old baby will laugh and say taa!

But tea, that enlivener of wit and of soulMore loquacious by far than the draughts of the bowl, Soon unloosens the tongue and enlivens the mind, And enlightens their eyes to the faults of mankind,

A

"Twas thus with the Pythia, who served at the fount That flow'd near the far-famed Parnassian mount, While the steam was inhaled of the sulphuric spring Her vision expanded, her fancy took wing; By its aid she pronounced the oracular will That Apollo commanded his sons to fulfil. But alas! the sad vestal, performing the rite, Appear'd like a demon-terrific to sights E'en the priests of Apollo averted their eyes, And the temple of Delphi resounded her cries. But quitting the nymph of the tripod of yore, We return to the dames of the tea-pot once more.

In harmless chit-chat an acquaintance they roast,
And serve up a friend, as they serve up a toast,
Some gentle faux pas, or some female mistake,
Is like sweatmeats delicious, or relished as cake;
A bit of broad scandal is like a dry crust,

It would stick in the throat, so they butter it first
With a little affected good nature, and cry
"Nobody regrets the thing deeper than I."
Our young ladies nibble a good name in play,
As for pastime they nibble a biscuit away:

While with shrugs and surmises the toothless old dame,
As she mumbles a crust she will mumble a name.
And as the fell sisters astonished the Scot,
In predicting of Banquo's descendants the lot,
Making shadows of kings, amid flashes of light
To appear in array and to frown in his sight,
So they conjure up spectres all hideous in hue,
Which, as shades of their neighbours, are pass'd in review.

The wives of our cits of inferior degree

Will soak up repute in a little bohea;

The potion is vulgar, and vulgar the slang

With which on their neighbours' defects they harangue;
But the scandal improves, a refinement in wrong!
As our matrons are richer, and rise to souchong.
With hyson--a beverage that's still more refined,
Our ladies of fashion enliven their mind,

And by nods, innuendoes, and hints, and what not,
Reputations and tea send together to pot.

While madam in laces and cambrics array'd,
With her plate and her liveries in splendid parade,
Will drink in imperial a friend at a sup,

Or in gunpowder blow them in dozens all up.
Ah me! how I groan when with full swelling sail
Wafted stately along by the favouring gale,
A China ship proudly arrives in our bay,
Displaying her streamers and blazing away.
Oh! more fell to our port is the cargo she bears
Than grenadoes, torpedoes, or warlike affairs:
Each chest is a bombshell thrown into our town,
To shatter repute and bring character down.

Ye Samquas, ye Chinquas, ye Chonquas, so free, Who discharge on our coasts your cursed quantums of tea, Oh! think, as ye waft the sad weed from your strand, Of the plagues and vexations ye deal to our land. As the Upas' dread breath, o'er the plain where it flies, Empoisons and blasts each green blade that may rise, So, wherever the leaves of your shrub find their way, The social affections soon suffer decay: Like to Java's drear waste they embarren the heart, Till the blossoms of love and friendship depart.

Ah, ladies, and was it by Heaven design'd
That ye should be merciful, loving, and kind!
Did it form you like angels, and send you below
To prophesy peace-to bid charity flow!
And have you thus left your primeval estate,
And wander'd so widely-so strangely of late?
Alas! the sad cause I too plainly can see-
These evils have all come upon you through tea!
Cursed weed, that can make our fair spirits resign
The character mild of their mission divine;

That can blot from their bosoms that tenderness true,
Which from female to female for ever is due!
O! how nice is the texture-how fragile the frame
Of that delicate blossom, a female's fair fame!

Tis the sensitive plant, it recoils from the breath; And shrinks from the touch as if pregnant with death. How often, how often, has innocence sigh'd, Has beauty been 'reft of its honour-its pride, Has virtue, though pure as an angel of light, Been painted as dark as a demon of night, All offer'd up victims, an auto da fe, At the gloomy cabals-the dark orgies of tea!

If I, in the remnant that's left me of life,....
Am to suffer the torments of slanderous strife,
Let me fall I implore in the slang-whanger's claw,
Where the evil is open and subject to law;

Not nibbled, and mumbled, and put to the rack, odott
By the sly underminings of tea-party clack:
Condemn me, ye gods, to a newspaper roasting,
But spare me! O spare me, a tea-table toasting!e boa.

Description of the powerful Army that assembled at the City of New-Amsterdam-together with the interview between Peter the Headstrong and General Von Poffenburgh; and Peter's Sentiments respecting unfortunate great Men.

WHILE thus the enterprising Peter was coasting, with flowing sail, up the shores of the lordly Hudson, and arousing all the phlegmatic little Dutch settlements upon its borders, a great and puissant concourse of warriors was assembling at the city of New-Amsterdam. And here that invaluable fragment of antiquity, the Stuyvesant manuscript, is more than commonly particular; by which means I am enabled to record the illustrious host that encamped itself on the public square, in front of the fort, at present denominated the Bowling Green.

In the centre then was pitched the tents of the men of battle of the Manhattoes; who, being the inmates of the metropolis, composed the life-guards of the governor. These were commanded by the valiant Stoffel Brinker

hoof, who whilome had acquired such immortal fame at Oyster Bay-they displayed as a standard, a beaver rampant on a field of orange; being the arms of the province, and denoting the persevering industry, and the amphibious origin of the Nederlanders*.

On their right hand might be seen the vassals of that renowned Mynheer Michael Pawt, who lorded it over the fair regions of ancient Pavonia, and the lands away south, even unto the Navesink mountainst, and was moreover patroon of Gibbet-Island. His standard was borne by his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of a huge oyster recumbent upon a sea green field; being the armorial bearings of his favourite metropolis, Communipaw. He brought to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each clad in ten pair of linsey woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by broad brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hatbands. These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of Pavonia; being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled to have sprung from oysters.

At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came from the neighbourhood of Hell-Gate. These were commanded by the Suy Dams, and the Van Dams,

*This was likewise the great seal of the New-Netherlands, as may still be seen in ancient records.

† Besides what is related in the Stuyvesant MS. I have found mention made of this illustrious Patroon in another manuscript, which says: "De Heer (or the Squire) Michael Paw, a Dutch subject, about 10th Aug. 1630, by deed purchased Staten-Island. N.B. The same Michael Paw had what the Dutch call a colonnie at Pavonia, on the Jersey shore, opposite New-York, and his overseer, in 1636, was named Corns. Van Vorst—a person of the same name, in 1769, owned Pawles Hook, and a large farm at Pavonia, and is a lineal descendant from Van Vorst."

+ So called from the Navesink tribe of Indians, that inhabited these parts-at present they are erroneously denominated the Neversink, or Neversunk mountains.