New York owes him a debt of lasting gratitude. It's an honour to shake hands with such a gentleman of the profession.

MR. DALRYMPLE. Allow me to say, I appreciate the honour as one of your daily readers.

MR. CHAMPKIN. Late from England, I estimate from your speech, sir. How do you like our great country, sir?

MR. DALRYMPLE. Very much, indeed, but for the heat; and the mosquitoes plague me sadly.

MR. CHAMPKIN. Indeed!-that's singular, sir; they never annoy me in the least. In fact, I like the musical whiz which accompanies their evolutions. Sometimes when I'm sleepless, I fancy them singing regular tunes, - "Star-spangled banner," and "Hail! Columbia." They never touch me, sir; but I expect they may bite an Englishman -considerable smart too, when first arrived here.

Tha dinna ib on de table, sa.

Buz, buz,-Mrs. Shippensburg,-refreshing air from the open window--the plants in exquisite order,-have you seen the patent flowerpots? No, sir; but some of our American pans are said to be made of very superior clay: really those we used to have from England were very odious things.-Ah, odious shapes, indeed! but the patent flowerpots are classically elegant.-But these patent pans will no doubt be imitated and improved upon by some of our enlightened citizens-No doubt, ma'am-Will you sit on my right, sir? Selina, dear! Colonel Worboys will sit there: come and support me on this side. What do you think of our York market, sir? Did the great abundance of everything astonish you at all?

MR. DALRYMPLE. An excellent market, indeed.

MRS. SHIPPEnsburg. But I guess you have pretty good markets in London, though some of our American gentlemen who have been over there, give ours the preference. Pine-apples there, are three dollars a piece, they say; the lobsters are very small, and the oysters ate quite coppery.

MR. DALRYMPLE. Only the common oysters. Those we call the natives are very delicate. British oysters were celebrated, even in the

time of the Romans.

MRS. SHIPPEnsburg.

But the Romans never tasted our fresh water long oyster. You have no corn, too, they say-one of our finest vegetables for the table.

MR. DALRYMPLE. No Indian corn, no mush, and no sweet potatoes; but you will smile when I tell you I cannot fancy either of these three dishes.

MRS. SHIPPENSBURG. What a singular taste you must have! Do you like terrapin ?

MR. DALRYMPLE. Very much: we have not any in England, but we import abundance of turtle instead.

MR. CHAMPKIN. Splendid beef! How do you like our American beef, sir?

MR. DALRYMPLE. Very good, indeed; but I can't say the same of your mutton.

MR. CHAMPKIN. Oh, we have splendid mutton, too, sir! But, I calculate, our beef is truly superb. I shall never forget the beef my father used to raise near Sandy Hollow. Not a piece ever came to table under five years old: it was the full-grown, mature, horned ox

that's a fact. Solid and full-bodied beef; you could swear it really was beef, at first sight. His plan of raising it was this:-He let the animal procure its own living for one year, and then supported it with luxuries the second year; worked it at the plough the third year; let it graze, and worked it in marketing the fourth year; and stall-fed it the fifth year, when it came to table handsome as beef should do. Five years old, to a day, and no better beef from Maine to Georgia.

MRS. SHIPPENSBURG. Have you seen the new confectionary store in Broadway? The proprietor says there is nothing so handsome in that way in London.

MR. DALRYMPLE. It is very handsome, indeed.

MRS. SHIPPENSBURG. But is there anything as handsome in London?

MR. DALRYMPLE. Oh, certainly! a good many.

MRS. SHIPPENSBURG. Dear me, what people you English are! What have we handsomer than you have in England?

MR. DALRYMPLE. One circumstance, which would more than outweigh a thousand others--the working classes here are better dressed, and look more comfortable and happy than our working classes.

MRS. SHIPPENSBURG. And that is all you admire here! I expected our general style of elegance, our broad, handsome streets, filled with every kind of vehicle, from the sulky to the gilded sleigh, our churches and city hall, were superior to anything you have in England.

MR. DALRYMPLE. Not exactly. But New York is a very handsome city, certainly; superior to most of our provincial towns in England.

MRS. SHIPPENSBURG. But not equal to London? Of course, London is a size or so larger than York.

*

*

Dinner is over, and we have a magnificent display of fruit and wines. The company are quiet, and the ladies retire. The five American gentlemen are then anxious to hear the Englishmen praise their country, which, of course, I do to as great an extent as my conscience will permit. General marks of admiration and praise are easily afforded, particularly where, as in America, they are so well deserved. I was in company, however, where general remarks passed current only for the moment; from the general we ascended (or descended) to the particular, and the conversation shortly caused me to be marked as a "regular John Bull" by Mr. Titus Offley Champkin, the editor.

DR. BRIGGS. A very curious case of lethargy in New Brighton. The patient has created a great sensation, and kept his funeral waiting the last ten weeks. About two years ago, he was seized with absence of mind, and couldn't tell, for six months, whether he was awake or asleep. Then he went to sleep, in right down good earnest, for three weeks, and awoke in a very exhausted state. Absence of mind again for six months, and then slept for seven weeks, waking a complete skeleton. Then he dozed on for several months, all the faculty, far and near, exercising on him, but they could only make him open his eyes and shut them again. At last I thought of a powerful remedy. I obtained two Chinese gongs, and made a communication between them and the patient's ears with copper wire, helically coiled with silk; put his feet in boiling hot water; let off a shower-bath of iced water

on his head; galvanized his two shoulder bones; put mustard plasters on his back and chest, and poured a strong decoction of brandy and sarsaparilla down the thoracic duct-two students, at the time, beating Washington's march on the gongs. In less than two minutes, he opened his eyes and awoke, but was very weak, and complained of a pain in all his joints. We repeated these stimulants daily for some time, and partly cured him; but soon after he went to sleep again, and he can never recover-he is too weak.

MR. POGUE. You know Mr. Bompard?

MR. SHIPPENSBURG. Lawyer and counsel?—Yes.

MR. POGUE. He is in disgrace with his honour, Judge Murphy.
MR. SHIPPENSBURG. Possible!--How so?

MR. POGUE. Why, there was a case of justifiable libel last Thursday. Bompard was defending the libel, and said to the jury-" I will bring the case home to you, gentlemen. I will imagine that, instead of being respectable citizens, you are most notorious vagabonds, first-rate thieves; that one of you has been a convicted incendiary; another, the keeper of a house of unquestionable immorality; that a third has been a store and wharf sneak; a fourth, the receiver of goods gouged by domestic helps from their boses; that a fifth is a soap-lock and loafer-" He was running on at this speed, out of all reasonable calculation, when the foreman of the jury started up, put on his hat, and swore that he would not sit and listen to such reflections. Judge Murphy, however, interposed, and told the jury not to be offended, as the learned gentleman was merely putting a case in supposition. "Never mind," said Bompard," if the jury object, I will shift my argument, and put the case to your honour. I will suppose, sir, that you are a man of infamous character; that you are a man out of the pale of all religionall morality; that your heart and conduct are equally vile; that you are a disgrace to society, a prodigal son, a perjured husband, and a brutal father; that you are an incendiary, a robber by profession, a soap-lock, and a loafer-" Judge Murphy squinted most fiercely whilst all this was being said, but as soon as Bompard pronounced loafer, he gulped down an entire glass of water, and stopped him short, telling him he was insulting the bench and the State constitution in his person, and he would agree with the foreman of the jury, that such reflections ought not to be tolerated. By-the-bye, Mr. Dalrymple, you have a curious common law in England respecting libels. Upon what principle does it work, sir?

MR. DALRYMPLE. Why, sir, upon this principle:-The common law says, that no man shall be judge, jury, and executioner. If Tom knows Dick to be a great scoundrel, and publishes the fact, the law steps forward, and says to Tom-" How dare you insult the majesty of public authority, by undertaking to punish offences? Dick must be punished only by a legal tribunal, and not by individuals who volunteer their services in vindication of a wrong done to the commonwealth." I do not mean to say our libel law does not require alteration and improvement, but I say it is founded on a just principle.

COLONEL WORBOYS. I should like to ask you, sir, as an Englishman, a few questions.

MR. DALRYMPLE. A whole history, sir, if you please.

COLONEL WORBOYS. Ahem! Is it true that some of your lords and noble dukes and most noble earls have a thousand dollars a day?

I believe it is.

MR. DALRYMPLE. COLONEL WORBOYS. Is it true that some of the industrious population of England do not taste better food than bread and potatoes for weeks together?

Mr. DALRYMPLE. Quite true, I am sorry to say.

COLONEL WORBOYS. And is it true, sir, that women are to be seen in London cleaning the streets, and in the country breaking stones on the highway?

MR. DALRYMPLE. I am ashamed to confess that such things are sometimes seen.

COLONEL WORBOYS. Ahem! Have you seen such things in our free country, sir?

MR. DALRYMPLE. Certainly not.

COLONEL WORBOYS. Thank you, sir. Ahem! I guess I have established a case against England; infamous-that is bad, outrageous enough to-to-to-sink, sir, sink an island tw-twice as large if-if—

MR. DALRYMPLE. If the character of the generality of the inhabitants did not render them superior to censure for circumstances arising from a redundant population, and ancient customs, laws, and institutions, those things so difficult to modify, much less to uproot. England is a small place, and the destitute crowd into the towns; in the States, when the destitute appear in your towns, they are philanthropically recommended by friends, relations, and strangers, to retire into the West. We are full of journeymen tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters, (say the inhabitants of the Atlantic seaboard,) go the West: when there, they are told to go further West, and when a thousand miles from the starting point, they are told to go into the farthest West, to brave the swamps, the jungle, the burning forests, and the invaded Indians. If a destitute American steal, he is put into solitary confinement, to ruminate on his destitution until he becomes a madman or an idiot.

COLONEL WORBOYS. You are a real John Bull, sir-ahem!

MR. SHIPPEnsburg. Titus Offley Champkin, I call upon you to state the latest unpublished case of absence of mind.

MR. CHAMPKIN. Oh! I have a capital one: I shall put it into my daily to-morrow or next day. I calculate it will make the tour of all the Exchange papers, except Bucknell's Reporter. Miss Angelina Spifflenberg, an old lady who keeps the Fox Indian Tomahawk, a sporting temperance hotel, at Big-bone-lick, near Brandywine Springs, State of Virginia, besides having a cork leg, has one of the most powerful squinting or screw eyes in this or any other country. With this screw eye she can take off her cork leg with a single glance, and screw the cork out of any bottle to which she takes a fancy. One day, being seized with absence of mind, she mistook a Monongahela whisky bottle for a stomachic cordial, and unscrewed the cork with her eye as usual; but instead of putting the right cork back again, she jammed the toe of her cork leg quite tight into the bottle, and did not discover her mistake until the spirit had made her leg so intoxicated that she could not stand.

DR. BRIGGS. A very interesting medical case, indeed; but it would sound more scientifically, if you used the word strabismus instead of

screw-eye.

MR. CHAMPKIN. There was a curious attempt at Lynching, the

other day, at Pittsburg. Bill Shipton, the English melo-dramatic actor, was enacting a British officer in " Early Life of Washington," but got so stupidly intoxicated, that when Miss Cuff, who played the youthful hero, had to fight and kill him in a duel, Bill Shipton wouldn't die; he even said loudly on the stage, that he would see the audience darned first, and then he wouldn't!" Mary Cuff fought on until she was ready to faint; and after she had repeated his cue for dying-which was "Cowardly hired assassin!"—for the fourteenth time, he absolutely jumped off the stage, not even pretending to be on the point of death. Our indignant citizens then chased him all over the house, and he only escaped by jumping into the coffin which they bring on in Hamlet, Romeo, and Richard.*

COLONEL WORBOYS. Pity they didn't catch him!

MR. DALRYMPLE. What, sir! are you a friend to "that worst of tyrants, a usurping crowd," as Pope makes Homer say?

MR. CHAMPKIN. He would have been killed in good earnest if they had nosed him. He saved his life by burying himself in the coffin. The ladies ub stars hab de honna to 'nounce coffee ib waiten.

THE SIEGE OF RADICOFANI.

A LEGEND OF THE WARS OF THE GUELPHS AND THE GHIBELLINES.

BY CHARLES HERVEY.

IN the time of the wars-not the Civil, nor those
Where each chose his party by choosing a rose,
Not the Thirty Years' War, nor the Peloponnesian;
Not Marathon, nor indeed anything Grecian;

Not Punic, Peninsular, Trojan, Burmese;

Not Jugurthine, American, Dutch, nor Chinese;

Not the war in La Vendée, which swept off whole families;
Nor that, where France got a dressing at Ramillies-

If none of these, what can tempt me to scribble lines?
What but the wars of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines!

"Twas in those times,

Those good olden times,

So famous for glory, so fertile in crimes,

When despoil'd by her own sons, fair Italy lay,

And her loveliness faded 'neath anarchy's sway;

"Twas then lived a captain, to whom all brave men owe a

Tribute of homage, Cuornero of Genoa.

Now pray, don't fancy

That you plainly can see

In your mind's eye a "nice man," sweet Laura or Nancy:
Imagine a short figure, squat, I may say,

With but one eye, and that looking always one way;
A Dutch teapot nose

As red as a rose,

But whence came the redness?—we can but suppose :
A fine two-inch beard, for this warrior brave
Had a strange trick of daily forgetting to shave;
A mouth like a shark's, and a head nearly bare,

Save some curious rat-tails the Captain call'd hair.

The actor mentioned (under an assumed name) in this anecdote is now in London.