nameless; or rather, for the better sound and elevation of the history, instead of Mr. and Mrs. Such-a-one, I shall call them by feigned names. Without further preface, you are to know, that within the liberties of the city of Westminster lives the Lady Honoria, a widow about the age of forty, of a healthy constitution, gay temper, and elegant person. She dresses a little too much like a girl, affects a childish fondness in the tone of her voice, sometimes a pretty sullenness in the leaning of her head, and now and then a downcast of her eyes on her fan. Neither her imagination nor her health would ever give her to know that she is turned of twenty; but that in the midst of these pretty softnesses, and airs of delicacy and attraction, she has a tall daughter within a fortnight of fifteen, who impertinently comes into the room, and towers so much towards woman, that her mother is always checked by her presence, and every charm of Honoria droops at the entrance of Flavia. The agreeable Flavia would be what she is not, as well as her mother Honoria; but all their beholders are more partial to an affectation of what a person is growing up to, than of what has been already enjoyed, and is gone for ever. It is therefore allowed to Flavia to look forward, but not to Honoria to look back. Flavia is no way dependent on her mother with relation to her fortune, for which reason they live almost upon an equality in conversation; and as Honoria has given Flavia to understand that it is ill-bred to be always calling mother, Flavia is as well pleased never to be called child. It happens by this means, that these ladies are generally rivals in all places where they appear; and the words mother and daughter never pass between them but out of spite. Flavia one night at a play, observing Honoria draw the eyes of several in the pit, called to a lady who sat by her, and bid her ask her mother to lend her her snuff-box for a moment. Another time, when a lover of Honoria was on his knees, beseeching the favor to kiss her hand, Flavia rushing into the room, kneeled down by him and asked her blessing. Several of these contradictory acts of duty have raised between them such a coldness, that they generally converse when they are in mixed company by way of talking at one another, and not to one another. Honoria is ever complaining of a certain sufficiency in the young women of this age, who assume to themselves an authority of carrying all things before them, as if they were possessors of the esteem of mankind, and all who were but a year before them in the world were neglected or deceased. Flavia, upon such provocation, is sure to observe, that there are people who can resign nothing, and know not how to give up what they know they cannot hold; that there are those who will not allow youth their follies, not because they are themselves past them, but because they love to continue in them. These beauties rival each other on all occasions; not that they have always had the same lovers, but each has kept up a vanity to show the other the charms of her lover. Dick Crastin and Tom Tulip, among many others, have of late been pretenders in this family; Dick to Honoria, Tom to Flavia. Dick is the only surviving beau of the last age, and Tom almost the only one that keeps up that order of men in this. I wish I could repeat the little circumstances of a conversation of the four lovers, with the spirit in which the young lady I had my account from represented it, at a visit where I had the honor to be present; but it seems Dick Crastin, the admirer of Honoria, and Tom Tulip, the pretender to Flavia, were purposely admitted together by the ladies, that each might show the other that her lover had the superiority in the accomplishments of that sort of creature whom the sillier part of women call a fine gentleman. As this age has a much more gross taste in courtship, as well as in everything else, than the last had, these gentlemen are instances of it in their different manner of application. Tulip is ever making allusions to the vigor of his person, the sinewy force of his make; while Crastin professes a wary observation of the turns of his mistress's mind. Tulip gives himself the air of a resistless ravisher, Crastin practises that of a skilful lover. Poetry is the inseparable property of every man in love; and as men of wit write verses on those occasions, the rest of the world repeat the verses of others. These servants of the ladies were used to imitate their manner of conversation, and allude toone another, rather than interchange discourse in what they said when they met. Tulip the other day seized his mistress's hand, and repeated out of Ovid's Art of Love: "'T is I can in soft battles pass the night, Yet rise next morning vigorous for the fight, Upon hearing this, Crastin, with an air of deference, played with Honoria's fan, and repeated: 66 Sedley has that prevailing gentle art, Between declining virtue and desire, Till the poor vanquished maid dissolves away, When Crastin had uttered these verses with a tenderness which at once spoke passion and respect, Honoria cast a triumphant glance at Flavia, as exulting in the elegance of Crastin's courtship, and upbraiding her with the homeliness of Tulip's. Tulip understood the reproach, and in return began to applaud the wisdom of old amorous gentlemen, who 'turned their mistress's imagination as far as possible from what they had long themselves forgot, and ended his discourse with a sly commendation of the doctrine of Platonic love; at the same time he ran over, with a laughing eye, Crastin's thin legs, meagre looks, and spare body. The old gentleman immediately left the room with some disorder, and the conversation fell upon untimely passion, after-love, and unseasonable youth. Tulip sung, danced, moved before the glass, led his mistress half a minuet, hummed "Celia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen!" when there came a servant with a letter to him, which was as follows: 66 SIR, I understand very well what you meant by your mention of Platonic love. I shall be glad to meet you immediately in Hyde Park, or behind Montague House, or attend Barn Elms, or any other fashionable place that's fit for a gentleman to die in, that you shall appoint for, sir, "Your most humble servant, you to "RICHARD CRASTIN." Tulip's color changed at the reading of this epistle; for which reason his mistress snatched it to read the contents. While she was doing so, Tulip went away; and the ladies, now agreeing in a common calamity, bewailed together the danger of their lovers. They immediately undressed to go out, and took hackneys to prevent mischief; but, after alarming all parts of the town, Crastin was found by his widow in his pumps at Hyde Park, which appointment Tulip never kept, but made his escape into the country. Flavia tears her hair for his inglorious safety, curses and despises her charmer, and is fallen into love with Crastin: which is the first part of the history of the rival mother. R. * Lord Rochester's Imitation of the First Satire of Horace. No. X. DEATH OF HON. JONATHAN CILLEY. Extracts from the Debate in the House of Representatives, on Wednesday, February 28, 1838. HON. JOHN FAIRFIELD, of Maine, as soon as the Journal was read, rose, and asked leave to offer the following resolution: 66 Resolved, That a committee consisting of seven members be appointed to investigate the causes which led to the death of the Hon. Jonathan Cilley, late a member of this House, and the circumstances connected therewith, and report thereon to the House. "Resolved, That said committee have power to send for persons and papers, and have leave to sit during the sessions of the House." "Mr. The rules were suspended, when Mr. Fairfield said: President, entertaining the views and feelings which I do entertain in regard to the awful tragedy in which certain members of this House lately participated, I could not refrain from offering the resolutions which have just been read. Sir, if I had held back, and refused to move in this affair, the voice of my brother's blood would cry to me from the ground.' My late colleague and friend has been shot down and deprived of life in a manner, and under circumstances, that seem to me most imperiously to demand an investigation. It is due to the surviving family and friends of the deceased, that we should take cognizance of this affair; it is due to ourselves, to our country, to humanity, and to God; and I trust that no member will shrink from the high and solemn responsibility thus cast upon him. But, aside from the peculiar circumstances of this case, and our peculiar duties resulting from them, it appears to me that an opportunity is presented, which every good man should be quick to improve, for assailing the barbarous and inhuman practice of duelling, a practice which does violence to the laws of God, to the best feelings of our own nature, and to the dictates of reason, a practice which is entirely behind and unworthy of the age of civilization in which we live, and which should unite the earnest and faithful efforts of every friend to his species for its extermination." He was followed by the Hon. William Cost Johnson, of Mary land, who remarked that he had voted against the suspension of the rules to introduce these resolutions, because, on hearing them read, he came to the conclusion that no good could result from them. No one could feel greater grief than himself at the calamity which befell the friends of the gentleman whose death we all now mourned, but he had voted against bringing in these resolutions because he did not know what power Congress had to suppress duelling. It was an evil in the state of society which made it necessary in some cases for gentlemen to resort to this mode of settling personal disputes, and he much regretted that it was so; but he did not apprehend that this inquiry was going to correct the evil, or that any salutary good could be effected by this inquiry. As to the particulars in this case, if it was desired to obtain them, the morning papers gave all the facts and circumstances connected with it; and if it was intended to enact an anti-duelling law, he would ask where, under the Constitution, you obtained the right to enact it. That was a matter which belonged to the States alone, and many of them have passed laws on this subject; and, in his opinion, it would be a usurpation of power for Congress to undertake to act on this subject. He should vote against this resolution, because he considered that it would be a reflection upon all the parties connected with the unfortunate occurrence alluded to in the resolution. He looked upon it as reflecting upon the wisdom and the justice of the parties engaged in it. He would ask any gentleman, if either of these parties had been guilty of any moral delinquency, or of any act which would bring him so far within the rules and laws of the House as to justify his expulsion? If any gentleman would rise in his place, and state that either of them had violated the rules of honor, or done any act which would make him an unfit associate for the members of this House, he would go as far as any one to have this inquiry instituted; he would vote, not only for a committee of inquiry, but he would vote to expel such individual from the House; and he would almost go to expel him from off the face of the earth. But no such thing had been intimated against any member of the House, and what right have we to go into this matter? What right have we to inquire into the private relations of gentlemen? What right have we to institute ourselves into a board of honor to inquire into a matter of this kind?* He would tell gentlemen that it would be an *The italics are the author's. |