set foot upon the shores of England, after a year’s absence,
      each, in foreign travel. In company with these gentlemen, my
      cousin and I, preconcertedly paid uncle Rumgudgeon a visit on the
      afternoon of Sunday, October the tenth,—just three weeks after
      the memorable decision which had so cruelly defeated our hopes.
      For about half an hour the conversation ran upon ordinary topics,
      but at last, we contrived, quite naturally, to give it the
      following turn:

      CAPT. PRATT. “Well I have been absent just one year.—Just one
      year to-day, as I live—let me see! yes!—this is October the
      tenth. You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called, this day year to
      bid you good-bye. And by the way, it does seem something like a
      coincidence, does it not—that our friend, Captain Smitherton,
      here, has been absent exactly a year also—a year to-day!”

      SMITHERTON. “Yes! just one year to a fraction. You will remember,
      Mr. Rumgudgeon, that I called with Capt. Pratol on this very day,
      last year, to pay my parting respects.”

      UNCLE. “Yes, yes, yes—I remember it very well—very queer indeed!
      Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence,
      indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an
      extraordinary concurrence of events. Doctor Dub—”

      KATE. (Interrupting.) “To be sure, papa, it is something strange;
      but then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didn’t go
      altogether the same route, and that makes a difference, you
      know.”

      UNCLE. “I don’t know any such thing, you huzzy! How should I? I
      think it only makes the matter more remarkable, Doctor Dubble L.
      Dee—”

      KATE. “Why, papa, Captain Pratt went round Cape Horn, and Captain
      Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope.”

      UNCLE. “Precisely!—the one went east and the other went west, you
      jade, and they both have gone quite round the world. By the by,
      Doctor Dubble L. Dee—”

      MYSELF. (Hurriedly.) “Captain Pratt, you must come and spend the
      evening with us to-morrow—you and Smitherton—you can tell us all
      about your voyage, and we’ll have a game of whist and—”

      PRATT. “Wist, my dear fellow—you forget. To-morrow will be
      Sunday. Some other evening—”

      KATE. “Oh, no, fie!—Robert’s not quite so bad as that. To-day’s
      Sunday.”

      PRATT. “I beg both your pardons—but I can’t be so much mistaken.
      I know to-morrow’s Sunday, because-”

      SMITHERTON. (Much surprised.) “What are you all thinking about?
      Wasn’t yesterday, Sunday, I should like to know?”

      ALL. “Yesterday indeed! you are out!”

      UNCLE. “To-day’s Sunday, I say—don’t I know?”

      PRATT. “Oh no!—to-morrow’s Sunday.”

      SMITHERTON. “You are all mad—every one of you. I am as positive
      that yesterday was Sunday as I am that I sit upon this chair.”

      KATE. (Jumping up eagerly.) “I see it—I see it all. Papa, this is
      a judgment upon you, about—about you know what. Let me alone, and
      I’ll explain it all in a minute. It’s a very simple thing,
      indeed. Captain Smitherton says that yesterday was Sunday: so it
      was; he is right. Cousin Bobby, and uncle and I say that to-day
      is Sunday: so it is; we are right. Captain Pratt maintains that
      to-morrow will be Sunday: so it will; he is right, too. The fact
      is, we are all right, and thus three Sundays have come together
      in a week.”

      SMITHERTON. (After a pause.) “By the by, Pratt, Kate has us
      completely. What fools we two are! Mr. Rumgudgeon, the matter
      stands thus: the earth, you know, is twenty-four thousand miles
      in circumference. Now this globe of the earth turns upon its own
      axis—revolves—spins round—these twenty-four thousand miles of
      extent, going from west to east, in precisely twenty-four hours.
      Do you understand, Mr. Rumgudgeon?—”

      UNCLE. “To be sure—to be sure—Doctor Dub—”

      SMITHERTON. (Drowning his voice.) “Well, sir; that is at the rate
      of one thousand miles per hour. Now, suppose that I sail from
      this position a thousand miles east. Of course I anticipate the
      rising of the sun here at London by just one hour. I see the sun
      rise one hour before you do. Proceeding, in the same direction,
      yet another thousand miles, I anticipate the rising by two
      hours—another thousand, and I anticipate it by three hours, and
      so on, until I go entirely round the globe, and back to this
      spot, when, having gone twenty-four thousand miles east, I
      anticipate the rising of the London sun by no less than
      twenty-four hours; that is to say, I am a day in advance of your
      time. Understand, eh?”

      UNCLE. “But Double L. Dee—”

      SMITHERTON. (Speaking very loud.) “Captain Pratt, on the
      contrary, when he had sailed a thousand miles west of this
      position, was an hour, and when he had sailed twenty-four
      thousand miles west, was twenty-four hours, or one day, behind
      the time at London. Thus, with me, yesterday was Sunday—thus,
      with you, to-day is Sunday—and thus, with Pratt, to-morrow will
      be Sunday. And what is more, Mr. Rumgudgeon, it is positively
      clear that we are all right; for there can be no philosophical
      reason assigned why the idea of one of us should have preference
      over that of the other.”

      UNCLE. “My eyes!—well, Kate—well, Bobby!—this is a judgment upon
      me, as you say. But I am a man of my word—mark that! you shall
      have her, boy, (plum and all), when you please. Done up, by Jove!
      Three Sundays all in a row! I’ll go, and take Dubble L. Dee’s
      opinion upon that.”

VOLUME 4.

THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY

     What o’clock is it?—_Old Saying_.

      Everybody knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the
      world is—or, alas, _was_—the Dutch borough of
      Vondervotteimittiss. Yet as it lies some distance from any of the
      main roads, being in a somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there
      are perhaps very few of my readers who have ever paid it a visit.
      For the benefit of those who have not, therefore, it will be only
      proper that I should enter into some account of it. And this is
      indeed the more necessary, as with the hope of enlisting public
      sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I design here to give a
      history of the calamitous events which have so lately occurred
      within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt that the duty
      thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my ability,
      with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious examination
      into facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which should
      ever distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.

      By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am
      enabled to say, positively, that the borough of
      Vondervotteimittiss has existed, from its origin, in precisely
      the same condition which it at present preserves. Of the date of
      this origin, however, I grieve that I can only speak with that
      species of indefinite definiteness which mathematicians are, at
      times, forced to put up with in certain algebraic formulae. The
      date, I may thus say, in regard to the remoteness of its
      antiquity, cannot be less than any assignable quantity
      whatsoever.

      Touching the derivation of the name Vondervotteimittiss, I
      confess myself, with sorrow, equally at fault. Among a multitude
      of opinions upon this delicate point—some acute, some learned,
      some sufficiently the reverse—I am able to select nothing which
      ought to be considered satisfactory. Perhaps the idea of
      Grogswigg—nearly coincident with that of Kroutaplenttey—is to be
      cautiously preferred.—It runs:—“Vondervotteimittis—Vonder, lege
      Donder—Votteimittis, quasi und Bleitziz—Bleitziz obsol:—pro
      Blitzen.” This derivative, to say the truth, is still
      countenanced by some traces of the electric fluid evident on the
      summit of the steeple of the House of the Town-Council. I do not
      choose, however, to commit myself on a theme of such importance,
      and must refer the reader desirous of information to the
      “Oratiunculae de Rebus Praeter-Veteris,” of Dundergutz. See,
      also, Blunderbuzzard “De Derivationibus,” pp. 27 to 5010, Folio,
      Gothic edit., Red and Black character, Catch-word and No Cypher;
      wherein consult, also, marginal notes in the autograph of
      Stuffundpuff, with the Sub-Commentaries of Gruntundguzzell.

      Notwithstanding the obscurity which thus envelops the date of the
      foundation of Vondervotteimittis, and the derivation of its name,
      there can be no doubt, as I said before, that it has always
      existed as we find it at this epoch. The oldest man in the
      borough can remember not the slightest difference in the
      appearance of any portion of it; and, indeed, the very suggestion
      of such a possibility is considered an insult. The site of the
      village is in a perfectly circular valley, about a quarter of a
      mile in circumference, and entirely surrounded by gentle hills,
      over whose summit the people have never yet ventured to pass. For
      this they assign the very good reason that they do not believe
      there is anything at all on the other side.

      Round the skirts of the valley (which is quite level, and paved
      throughout with flat tiles), extends a continuous row of sixty
      little houses. These, having their backs on the hills, must look,
      of course, to the centre of the plain, which is just sixty yards
      from the front door of each dwelling. Every house has a small
      garden before it, with a circular path, a sun-dial, and
      twenty-four cabbages. The buildings themselves are so precisely
      alike, that one can in no manner be distinguished from the other.
      Owing to the vast antiquity, the style of architecture is
      somewhat odd, but it is not for that reason the less strikingly
      picturesque. They are fashioned of hard-burned little bricks,
      red, with black ends, so that the walls look like a chess-board
      upon a great scale. The gables are turned to the front, and there
      are cornices, as big as all the rest of the house, over the eaves
      and over the main doors. The windows are narrow and deep, with
      very tiny panes and a great deal of sash. On the roof is a vast
      quantity of tiles with long curly ears. The woodwork, throughout,
      is of a dark hue and there is much carving about it, with but a
      trifling variety of pattern for, time out of mind, the carvers of
      Vondervotteimittiss have never been able to carve more than two
      objects—a time-piece and a cabbage. But these they do exceedingly
      well, and intersperse them, with singular ingenuity, wherever
      they find room for the chisel.

      The dwellings are as much alike inside as out, and the furniture
      is all upon one plan. The floors are of square tiles, the chairs
      and tables of black-looking wood with thin crooked legs and puppy
      feet. The mantelpieces are wide and high, and have not only
      time-pieces and cabbages sculptured over the front, but a real
      time-piece, which makes a prodigious ticking, on the top in the
      middle, with a flower-pot containing a cabbage standing on each
      extremity by way of outrider. Between each cabbage and the
      time-piece, again, is a little China man having a large stomach
      with a great round hole in it, through which is seen the
      dial-plate of a watch.

      The fireplaces are large and deep, with fierce crooked-looking
      fire-dogs. There is constantly a rousing fire, and a huge pot
      over it, full of sauer-kraut and pork, to which the good woman of
      the house is always busy in attending. She is a little fat old
      lady, with blue eyes and a red face, and wears a huge cap like a
      sugar-loaf, ornamented with purple and yellow ribbons. Her dress
      is of orange-colored linsey-woolsey, made very full behind and
      very short in the waist—and indeed very short in other respects,
      not reaching below the middle of her leg. This is somewhat thick,
      and so are her ankles, but she has a fine pair of green stockings
      to cover them. Her shoes—of pink leather—are fastened each with a
      bunch of yellow ribbons puckered up in the shape of a cabbage. In
      her left hand she has a little heavy Dutch watch; in her right
      she wields a ladle for the sauerkraut and pork. By her side there
      stands a fat tabby cat, with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its
      tail, which “the boys” have there fastened by way of a quiz.

      The boys themselves are, all three of them, in the garden
      attending the pig. They are each two feet in height. They have
      three-cornered cocked hats, purple waistcoats reaching down to
      their thighs, buckskin knee-breeches, red stockings, heavy shoes
      with big silver buckles, long surtout coats with large buttons of
      mother-of-pearl. Each, too, has a pipe in his mouth, and a little
      dumpy watch in his right hand. He takes a puff and a look, and
      then a look and a puff. The pig—which is corpulent and lazy—is
      occupied now in picking up the stray leaves that fall from the
      cabbages, and now in giving a kick behind at the gilt repeater,
      which the urchins have also tied to his tail in order to make him
      look as handsome as the cat.

      Right at the front door, in a high-backed leather-bottomed armed
      chair, with crooked legs and puppy feet like the tables, is
      seated the old man of the house himself. He is an exceedingly
      puffy little old gentleman, with big circular eyes and a huge
      double chin. His dress resembles that of the boys—and I need say
      nothing farther about it. All the difference is, that his pipe is
      somewhat bigger than theirs and he can make a greater smoke. Like
      them, he has a watch, but he carries his watch in his pocket. To
      say the truth, he has something of more importance than a watch
      to attend to—and what that is, I shall presently explain. He sits
      with his right leg upon his left knee, wears a grave countenance,
      and always keeps one of his eyes, at least, resolutely bent upon
      a certain remarkable object in the centre of the plain.

      This object is situated in the steeple of the House of the Town
      Council. The Town Council are all very little, round, oily,
      intelligent men, with big saucer eyes and fat double chins, and
      have their coats much longer and their shoe-buckles much bigger
      than the ordinary inhabitants of Vondervotteimittiss. Since my
      sojourn in the borough, they have had several special meetings,
      and have adopted these three important resolutions:

      “That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things:”

      “That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss:”
      and—

      “That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages.”

      Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the
      steeple is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of
      mind, the pride and wonder of the village—the great clock of the
      borough of Vondervotteimittiss. And this is the object to which
      the eyes of the old gentlemen are turned who sit in the
      leather-bottomed arm-chairs.

      The great clock has seven faces—one in each of the seven sides of
      the steeple—so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its
      faces are large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There
      is a belfry-man whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty
      is the most perfect of sinecures—for the clock of
      Vondervotteimittis was never yet known to have anything the
      matter with it. Until lately, the bare supposition of such a
      thing was considered heretical. From the remotest period of
      antiquity to which the archives have reference, the hours have
      been regularly struck by the big bell. And, indeed the case was
      just the same with all the other clocks and watches in the
      borough. Never was such a place for keeping the true time. When
      the large clapper thought proper to say “Twelve o’clock!” all its
      obedient followers opened their throats simultaneously, and
      responded like a very echo. In short, the good burghers were fond
      of their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud of their clocks.

      All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less
      respect, and as the belfry—man of Vondervotteimittiss has the
      most perfect of sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of
      any man in the world. He is the chief dignitary of the borough,
      and the very pigs look up to him with a sentiment of reverence.
      His coat-tail is very far longer—his pipe, his shoe-buckles, his
      eyes, and his stomach, very far bigger—than those of any other
      old gentleman in the village; and as to his chin, it is not only
      double, but triple.

      I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss:
      alas, that so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse!

      There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants, that
      “no good can come from over the hills”; and it really seemed that
      the words had in them something of the spirit of prophecy. It
      wanted five minutes of noon, on the day before yesterday, when
      there appeared a very odd-looking object on the summit of the
      ridge of the eastward. Such an occurrence, of course, attracted
      universal attention, and every little old gentleman who sat in a
      leather-bottomed arm-chair turned one of his eyes with a stare of
      dismay upon the phenomenon, still keeping the other upon the
      clock in the steeple.

      By the time that it wanted only three minutes to noon, the droll
      object in question was perceived to be a very diminutive
      foreign-looking young man. He descended the hills at a great
      rate, so that every body had soon a good look at him. He was
      really the most finicky little personage that had ever been seen
      in Vondervotteimittiss. His countenance was of a dark
      snuff-color, and he had a long hooked nose, pea eyes, a wide
      mouth, and an excellent set of teeth, which latter he seemed
      anxious of displaying, as he was grinning from ear to ear. What
      with mustachios and whiskers, there was none of the rest of his
      face to be seen. His head was uncovered, and his hair neatly done
      up in papillotes. His dress was a tight-fitting swallow-tailed
      black coat (from one of whose pockets dangled a vast length of
      white handkerchief), black kerseymere knee-breeches, black
      stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge bunches of black
      satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a huge
      _chapeau-de-bras_, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times
      as big as himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from
      which, as he capered down the hill, cutting all manner of
      fantastic steps, he took snuff incessantly with an air of the
      greatest possible self-satisfaction. God bless me!—here was a
      sight for the honest burghers of Vondervotteimittiss!

      To speak plainly, the fellow had, in spite of his grinning, an
      audacious and sinister kind of face; and as he curvetted right
      into the village, the old stumpy appearance of his pumps excited
      no little suspicion; and many a burgher who beheld him that day
      would have given a trifle for a peep beneath the white cambric
      handkerchief which hung so obtrusively from the pocket of his
      swallow-tailed coat. But what mainly occasioned a righteous
      indignation was, that the scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a
      fandango here, and a whirligig there, did not seem to have the
      remotest idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time in his
      steps.

      The good people of the borough had scarcely a chance, however, to
      get their eyes thoroughly open, when, just as it wanted half a
      minute of noon, the rascal bounced, as I say, right into the
      midst of them; gave a _chassez_ here, and a _balancez_ there; and
      then, after a _pirouette_ and a _pas-de-zephyr_, pigeon-winged
      himself right up into the belfry of the House of the Town
      Council, where the wonder-stricken belfry-man sat smoking in a
      state of dignity and dismay. But the little chap seized him at
      once by the nose; gave it a swing and a pull; clapped the big
      _chapeau-de-bras_ upon his head; knocked it down over his eyes
      and mouth; and then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it
      so long and so soundly, that what with the belfry-man being so
      fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you would have sworn that
      there was a regiment of double-bass drummers all beating the
      devil’s tattoo up in the belfry of the steeple of
      Vondervotteimittiss.

      There is no knowing to what desperate act of vengeance this
      unprincipled attack might have aroused the inhabitants, but for
      the important fact that it now wanted only half a second of noon.
      The bell was about to strike, and it was a matter of absolute and
      pre-eminent necessity that every body should look well at his
      watch. It was evident, however, that just at this moment the
      fellow in the steeple was doing something that he had no business
      to do with the clock. But as it now began to strike, nobody had
      any time to attend to his manœuvres, for they had all to count
      the strokes of the bell as it sounded.

      “One!” said the clock.

      “Von!” echoed every little old gentleman in every
      leather-bottomed arm-chair in Vondervotteimittiss. “Von!” said
      his watch also; “von!” said the watch of his vrow; and “von!”
      said the watches of the boys, and the little gilt repeaters on
      the tails of the cat and pig.

      “Two!” continued the big bell; and

      “Doo!” repeated all the repeaters.

      “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!” said the bell.

      “Dree! Vour! Fibe! Sax! Seben! Aight! Noin! Den!” answered the
      others.

      “Eleven!” said the big one.

      “Eleben!” assented the little ones.

      “Twelve!” said the bell.

      “Dvelf!” they replied perfectly satisfied, and dropping their
      voices.

      “Und dvelf it is!” said all the little old gentlemen, putting up
      their watches. But the big bell had not done with them yet.

      “Thirteen!” said he.

      “Der Teufel!” gasped the little old gentlemen, turning pale,
      dropping their pipes, and putting down all their right legs from
      over their left knees.

      “Der Teufel!” groaned they, “Dirteen! Dirteen!!—Mein Gott, it is
      Dirteen o’clock!!”

      Why attempt to describe the terrible scene which ensued? All
      Vondervotteimittiss flew at once into a lamentable state of
      uproar.

      “Vot is cum’d to mein pelly?” roared all the boys—“I’ve been
      ongry for dis hour!”

      “Vot is com’d to mein kraut?” screamed all the vrows, “It has
      been done to rags for this hour!”

      “Vot is cum’d to mein pipe?” swore all the little old gentlemen,
      “Donder and Blitzen; it has been smoked out for dis hour!”—and
      they filled them up again in a great rage, and sinking back in
      their arm-chairs, puffed away so fast and so fiercely that the
      whole valley was immediately filled with impenetrable smoke.

      Meantime the cabbages all turned very red in the face, and it
      seemed as if old Nick himself had taken possession of every thing
      in the shape of a timepiece. The clocks carved upon the furniture
      took to dancing as if bewitched, while those upon the
      mantel-pieces could scarcely contain themselves for fury, and
      kept such a continual striking of thirteen, and such a frisking
      and wriggling of their pendulums as was really horrible to see.
      But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up
      any longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to
      their tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place,
      scratching and poking, and squeaking and screeching, and
      caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the faces, and
      running under the petticoats of the people, and creating
      altogether the most abominable din and confusion which it is
      possible for a reasonable person to conceive. And to make matters
      still more distressing, the rascally little scape-grace in the
      steeple was evidently exerting himself to the utmost. Every now
      and then one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the
      smoke. There he sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was
      lying flat upon his back. In his teeth the villain held the
      bell-rope, which he kept jerking about with his head, raising
      such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it. On
      his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all
      time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the
      nincompoop! of playing “Judy O’Flannagan and Paddy O’Rafferty.”

      Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in
      disgust, and now appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and
      fine kraut. Let us proceed in a body to the borough, and restore
      the ancient order of things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting
      that little fellow from the steeple.

LIONIZING

     —— all people went
     Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.
                    —_Bishop Hall’s Satires_.

      I am—that is to say I was—a great man; but I am neither the
      author of Junius nor the man in the mask; for my name, I believe,
      is Robert Jones, and I was born somewhere in the city of
      Fum-Fudge.

      The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with
      both hands. My mother saw this and called me a genius—my father
      wept for joy and presented me with a treatise on Nosology. This I
      mastered before I was breeched.

      I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to
      understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently
      conspicuous, he might, by merely following it, arrive at a
      Lionship. But my attention was not confined to theories alone.
      Every morning I gave my proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed
      a half dozen of drams.

      When I came of age my father asked me, one day, if I would step
      with him into his study.

      “My son,” said he, when we were seated, “what is the chief end of
      your existence?”

      “My father,” I answered, “it is the study of Nosology.”

      “And what, Robert,” he inquired, “is Nosology?”

      “Sir,” I said, “it is the science of Noses.”

      “And can you tell me,” he demanded, “what is the meaning of a
      nose?”

      “A nose, my father;” I replied, greatly softened, “has been
      variously defined by about a thousand different authors.” [Here I
      pulled out my watch.] “It is now noon or thereabouts—we shall
      have time enough to get through with them all before midnight. To
      commence then:—The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that
      protuberance—that bump—that excrescence—that—”

      “Will do, Robert,” interrupted the good old gentleman. “I am
      thunderstruck at the extent of your information—I am
      positively—upon my soul.” [Here he closed his eyes and placed his
      hand upon his heart.] “Come here!” [Here he took me by the arm.]
      “Your education may now be considered as finished—it is high time
      you should scuffle for yourself—and you cannot do a better thing
      than merely follow your nose—so—so—so—” [Here he kicked me
      downstairs and out of the door.]—“so get out of my house, and God
      bless you!”

      As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this
      accident rather fortunate than otherwise. I resolved to be guided
      by the paternal advice. I determined to follow my nose. I gave it
      a pull or two upon the spot, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology
      forthwith.

      All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.

      “Wonderful genius!” said the Quarterly.

      “Superb physiologist!” said the Westminster.

      “Clever fellow!” said the Foreign.

      “Fine writer!” said the Edinburgh.

      “Profound thinker!” said the Dublin.

      “Great man!” said Bentley.

      “Divine soul!” said Fraser.

      “One of us!” said Blackwood.

      “Who can he be?” said Mrs. Bas-Bleu.

      “What can he be?” said big Miss Bas-Bleu.

      “Where can he be?” said little Miss Bas-Bleu.—But I paid these
      people no attention whatever—I just stepped into the shop of an
      artist.

      The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her portrait; the
      Marquis of So-and-So was holding the Duchess’ poodle; the Earl of
      This-and-That was flirting with her salts; and his Royal Highness
      of Touch-me-Not was leaning upon the back of her chair.

      I approached the artist and turned up my nose.

      “Oh, beautiful!” sighed her Grace.

      “Oh my!” lisped the Marquis.

      “Oh, shocking!” groaned the Earl.

      “Oh, abominable!” growled his Royal Highness.

      “What will you take for it?” asked the artist.

      “For his nose!” shouted her Grace.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I, sitting down.

      “A thousand pounds?” inquired the artist, musingly.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I.

      “Beautiful!” said he, entranced.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I.

      “Do you warrant it?” he asked, turning the nose to the light.

      “I do,” said I, blowing it well.

      “Is it quite original?” he inquired; touching it with reverence.

      “Humph!” said I, twisting it to one side.

      “Has no copy been taken?” he demanded, surveying it through a
      microscope.

      “None,” said I, turning it up.

      “Admirable!” he ejaculated, thrown quite off his guard by the
      beauty of the manœuvre.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I.

      “A thousand pounds?” said he.

      “Precisely,” said I.

      “A thousand pounds?” said he.

      “Just so,” said I.

      “You shall have them,” said he. “What a piece of virtu!” So he
      drew me a check upon the spot, and took a sketch of my nose. I
      engaged rooms in Jermyn street, and sent her Majesty the
      ninety-ninth edition of the “Nosology,” with a portrait of the
      proboscis.—That sad little rake, the Prince of Wales, invited me
      to dinner.

      We were all lions and _recherchés_.

      There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, Iamblicus,
      Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius, and Syrianus.

      There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgôt, Price,
      Priestly, Condorcêt, De Staël, and the “Ambitious Student in Ill
      Health.”

      There was Sir Positive Paradox. He observed that all fools were
      philosophers, and that all philosophers were fools.

      There was Æstheticus Ethix. He spoke of fire, unity, and atoms;
      bi-part and pre-existent soul; affinity and discord; primitive
      intelligence and homoömeria.

      There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and Arianus;
      heresy and the Council of Nice; Puseyism and consubstantialism;
      Homousios and Homouioisios.

      There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale. He mentioned
      Muriton of red tongue; cauliflowers with _velouté_ sauce; veal _à
      la St_. Menehoult; marinade _à la_ St. Florentin; and orange
      jellies _en mosaïques_.

      There was Bibulus O’Bumper. He touched upon Latour and
      Markbrünnen; upon Mousseux and Chambertin; upon Richbourg and St.
      George; upon Haubrion, Leonville, and Medoc; upon Barac and
      Preignac; upon Grâve, upon Sauterne, upon Lafitte, and upon St.
      Peray. He shook his head at Clos de Vougeot, and told, with his
      eyes shut, the difference between Sherry and Amontillado.

      There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence. He discoursed of
      Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino—of the gloom of
      Caravaggio, of the amenity of Albano, of the colors of Titian, of
      the frows of Rubens, and of the waggeries of Jan Steen.

      There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He was of
      opinion that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis in
      Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece.

      There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He could not help thinking
      that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls; that somebody in
      the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads; and that the earth
      was supported by a sky-blue cow with an incalculable number of
      green horns.

      There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what had become of the
      eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four
      orations of Isæus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches
      of Lysias; of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus;
      of the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius; of
      Pindar’s hymns and dithyrambics; and of the five and forty
      tragedies of Homer Junior.

      There was Ferdinand Fitz-Fossillus Feltspar. He informed us all
      about internal fires and tertiary formations; about aëriforms,
      fluidiforms, and solidiforms; about quartz and marl; about schist
      and schorl; about gypsum and trap; about talc and calc; about
      blende and horn-blende; about mica-slate and pudding-stone; about
      cyanite and lepidolite; about hematite and tremolite; about
      antimony and calcedony; about manganese and whatever you please.

      There was myself. I spoke of myself;—of myself, of myself, of
      myself;—of Nosology, of my pamphlet, and of myself. I turned up
      my nose, and I spoke of myself.

      “Marvellous clever man!” said the Prince.

      “Superb!” said his guests;—and next morning her Grace of
      Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit.

      “Will you go to Almack’s, pretty creature?” she said, tapping me
      under the chin.

      “Upon honor,” said I.

      “Nose and all?” she asked.

      “As I live,” I replied.

      “Here then is a card, my life. Shall I say you will be there?”

      “Dear Duchess, with all my heart.”

      “Pshaw, no!—but with all your nose?”

      “Every bit of it, my love,” said I:—so I gave it a twist or two,
      and found myself at Almack’s. The rooms were crowded to
      suffocation.

      “He is coming!” said somebody on the staircase.

      “He is coming!” said somebody farther up.

      “He is coming!” said somebody farther still.

      “He is come!” exclaimed the Duchess. “He is come, the little
      love!”—and, seizing me firmly by both hands, she kissed me thrice
      upon the nose. A marked sensation immediately ensued.

      “_Diavolo!_” cried Count Capricornutti.

      “_Dios guarda!_” muttered Don Stiletto.

      “_Mille tonnerres!_” ejaculated the Prince de Grenouille.

      “_Tousand teufel!_” growled the Elector of Bluddennuff.

      It was not to be borne. I grew angry. I turned short upon
      Bluddennuff.

      “Sir!” said I to him, “you are a baboon.”

      “Sir,” he replied, after a pause, “_Donner und Blitzen!_”

      This was all that could be desired. We exchanged cards. At
      Chalk-Farm, the next morning, I shot off his nose—and then called
      upon my friends.

      “_Bête!_” said the first.

      “Fool!” said the second.

      “Dolt!” said the third.

      “Ass!” said the fourth.

      “Ninny!” said the fifth.

      “Noodle!” said the sixth.

      “Be off!” said the seventh.

      At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father.

      “Father,” I asked, “what is the chief end of my existence?”

      “My son,” he replied, “it is still the study of Nosology; but in
      hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark.
      You have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bluddennuff has none.
      You are damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant
      you that in Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to
      the size of his proboscis—but, good heavens! there is no
      competing with a lion who has no proboscis at all.”

X-ING A PARAGRAB

      As it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and
      as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows
      that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of
      the matter be needed, here we have it—Mr. B. was an editor.
      Irascibility was his sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of
      which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he
      justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point—his
      virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to
      convince him that it was ‘anything else.’

      I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and
      the only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when,
      abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he
      migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some
      place of a similar title, out West.

      I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up
      his mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the
      impression that no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed
      in that particular section of the country. In establishing ‘The
      Tea-Pot’ he expected to have the field all to himself. I feel
      confident he never would have dreamed of taking up his residence
      in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis had he been aware that, in
      Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived a gentleman named John
      Smith (if I rightly remember), who for many years had there
      quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the
      ‘Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.’ It was solely,
      therefore, on account of having been misinformed, that Mr.
      Bullet-head found himself in Alex—— suppose we call it Nopolis,
      ‘for short’—but, as he did find himself there, he determined to
      keep up his character for obst—for firmness, and remain. So
      remain he did; and he did more; he unpacked his press, type,
      etc., etc., rented an office exactly opposite to that of the
      ‘Gazette,’ and, on the third morning after his arrival, issued
      the first number of ‘The Alexan’—that is to say, of ‘The Nopolis
      Tea-Pot’—as nearly as I can recollect, this was the name of the
      new paper.

      The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant—not to say
      severe. It was especially bitter about things in general—and as
      for the editor of ‘The Gazette,’ he was torn all to pieces in
      particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery
      that I have always, since that time, been forced to look upon
      John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I
      cannot pretend to give all the ‘Tea-Pot’s’ paragraphs verbatim,
      but one of them runs thus:

      ‘Oh, yes!—Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way
      is a genius—O, my! Oh, goodness, gracious!—what is this world
      coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’

      A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a
      bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups
      of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets.
      Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the
      dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared as follows:

      ‘We quote from “The Tea-Pot” of yesterday the subjoined
      paragraph: “Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh,
      goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!” Why, the fellow is all O! That
      accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is
      neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything he says. We
      really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t
      an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he
      came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as
      much there as he does here? “O! it is pitiful.”’

      The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous
      insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the
      eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much
      incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have
      imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to
      desperation. What!—he Touch-and-go Bullet-head!—not able to write
      a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see
      that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was
      mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of
      Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he,
      Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole
      paragraph—aye! a whole article—in which that contemptible vowel
      should not once—not even once—make its appearance. But no;—that
      would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He,
      Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the
      caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a
      thought! The O forever; He would persist in the O. He would be as
      O-wy as O-wy could be.

      Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great
      Touch-and-go, in the next ‘Tea-Pot,’ came out merely with this
      simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy
      affair:

      ‘The editor of the “Tea-Pot” has the honor of advising the editor
      of the “Gazette” that he (the “Tea-Pot”) will take an opportunity
      in tomorrow morning’s paper, of convincing him (the “Gazette”)
      that he (the “Tea-Pot”) both can and will be _his own master_, as
      regards style;—he (the “Tea-Pot”) intending to show him (the
      “Gazette”) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with
      which the criticism of him (the “Gazette”) inspires the
      independent bosom of him (the “Tea-Pot”) by composing for the
      especial gratification (?) of him (the “Gazette”) a leading
      article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel—the emblem
      of Eternity—yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of
      him (the “Gazette”) shall most certainly not be avoided by his
      (the “Gazette’s”) most obedient, humble servant, the “Tea-Pot.”
      “So much for Buckingham!”’

      In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather
      than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf
      ear to all entreaties for ‘copy,’ and simply requesting his
      foreman to ‘go to the d——l,’ when he (the foreman) assured him
      (the ‘Tea-Pot’!) that it was high time to ‘go to press’: turning
      a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up
      until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the
      composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:—

      ‘So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another
      time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know
      you’re out? Oh, no, no!—so go home at once, now, John, to your
      odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl—go!
      You won’t! Oh, poh, poh, John don’t do so! You’ve _got_ to go,
      you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow, for nobody owns you
      here, you know! Oh! John, John, if you don’t go you’re no
      homo—no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a
      poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or
      frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now—cool! Do be cool, you
      fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so—don’t! Don’t
      hollo, nor howl nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how
      you do look! Told you so, you know—but stop rolling your goose of
      an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!’

      Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great
      Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly,
      composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS.
      to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home,
      retired, with ineffable dignity to bed.

      Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs
      to his ‘case,’ in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
      commencement at ‘setting’ the MS. ‘up.’

      In the first place, of course,—as the opening word was ‘So,’—he
      made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph
      with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw
      himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but
      who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without
      the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his
      astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles,
      that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the
      bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o
      hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he
      found _that_, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar
      predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the
      foreman.

      ‘Sir!’ said he, gasping for breath, ‘I can’t never set up nothing
      without no o’s.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’ growled the foreman, who was in a
      very ill humor at being kept so late.

      ‘Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
      little un!’

      ‘What—what the d—l has become of all that were in the case?’

      ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the boy, ‘but one of them ere “G’zette”
      devils is bin prowling ’bout here all night, and I spect he’s
      gone and cabbaged ‘em every one.’

      ‘Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,’ replied the foreman,
      getting purple with rage ‘but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s
      a good boy—you go over the first chance you get and hook every
      one of their i’s and (d——n them!) their izzards.’

      ‘Jist so,’ replied Bob, with a wink and a frown—‘I’ll be into
      ‘em, I’ll let ‘em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that
      ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know—else there’ll be the
      d—l to pay, and—’

      ‘And not a bit of pitch hot,’ interrupted the foreman, with a
      deep sigh, and an emphasis on the ‘bit.’ ‘Is it a long paragraph,
      Bob?’

      ‘Shouldn’t call it a _wery_ long paragrab,’ said Bob.

      ‘Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! We must get to
      press,’ said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work;
      ‘just stick in some other letter for o; nobody’s going to read
      the fellow’s trash anyhow.’

      ‘Wery well,’ replied Bob, ‘here goes it!’ and off he hurried to
      his case, muttering as he went: ‘Considdeble vell, them ere
      expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn’t swar. So I’s to
      gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d-n all their gizzards! Vell!
      this here’s the chap as is just able for to do it.’ The fact is
      that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he
      was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

      The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in
      printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but
      the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it
      almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the
      letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather
      the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in
      the old times—long enough to render the substitution in question
      an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have
      considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case
      of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

      ‘I shell have to x this ere paragrab,’ said he to himself, as he
      read it over in astonishment, ‘but it’s jest about the awfulest
      o-wy paragrab I ever did see’: so x it he did, unflinchingly, and
      to press it went x-ed.

      Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by
      reading in ‘The Tea-Pot,’ the following extraordinary leader:

      ‘Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn’t crxw, anxther
      time, befxre yxu’re xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw
      yxu’re xut? Xh, nx, nx!—sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur
      xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl,—gx!
      Yxu wxn’t? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn’t dx sx! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu
      knxw, sx gx at xnce, and dxn’t gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here,
      yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn’t gx yxu’re nx
      hxmx—nx! Yxu’re xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a
      pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy, lxg, dxg, hxg, xr
      frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw—cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu
      fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn’t frxwn sx—dxn’t! Dxn’t
      hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw
      yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw,—but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse
      xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a
      bxwl!’

      The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article,
      is not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by
      the populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in
      the hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head’s
      residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that
      gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could
      tell how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.

      Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at
      length subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a
      medley of opinion about this unhappy affair.

      One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.

      Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance
      of fancy.

      A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.

      A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s design to X-press, in
      a general way, his X-asperation.

      ‘Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,’ suggested a fifth.

      That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity, was clear to
      all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was
      some talk about lynching the other one.

      The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was,
      simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town
      mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a
      problem. X, everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this
      case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of
      X.

      The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark about his having
      ‘X-ed the paragrab’), did not meet with so much attention as I
      think it deserved, although it was very openly and very
      fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt
      about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that Mr.
      Bullet-head ‘never could be persuaded fur to drink like other
      folks, but vas continually a-svigging o’ that ere blessed XXX
      ale, and as a naiteral consekvence, it just puffed him up savage,
      and made him X (cross) in the X-treme.’

METZENGERSTEIN

     Pestis eram vivus—moriens tua mors ero.
                    —_Martin Luther_

      Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why
      then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to
      say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the
      interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the
      doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves—that
      is, of their falsity, or of their probability—I say nothing. I
      assert, however, that much of our incredulity—as La Bruyère says
      of all our unhappiness—“_vient de ne pouvoir être seuls_.” {*1}

      But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which
      were fast verging to absurdity. They—the Hungarians—differed very
      essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, “_The
      soul_,” said the former—I give the words of an acute and
      intelligent Parisian—“_ne demeure qu’un seul fois dans un corps
      sensible: au reste—un cheval, un chien, un homme même, n’est que
      la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux._”

      The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at
      variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so
      illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The
      origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an
      ancient prophecy—“A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as
      the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall
      triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.”

      To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But
      more trivial causes have given rise—and that no long while ago—to
      consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were
      contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs
      of a busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom
      friends; and the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might
      look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the
      palace Metzengerstein. Least of all had the more than feudal
      magnificence, thus discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable
      feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy Berlifitzings. What
      wonder then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction,
      should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two
      families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of
      hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply—if it implied
      anything—a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful
      house; and was of course remembered with the more bitter
      animosity by the weaker and less influential.

      Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at
      the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man,
      remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal
      antipathy to the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of
      horses, and of hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age,
      nor mental incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the
      dangers of the chase.

      Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet
      of age. His father, the Minister G—, died young. His mother, the
      Lady Mary, followed him quickly after. Frederick was, at that
      time, in his fifteenth year. In a city, fifteen years are no long
      period—a child may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in
      a wilderness—in so magnificent a wilderness as that old
      principality, fifteen years have a far deeper meaning.

      From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of
      his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former,
      entered immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were
      seldom held before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were
      without number. The chief in point of splendor and extent was the
      “Château Metzengerstein.” The boundary line of his dominions was
      never clearly defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit
      of fifty miles.

      Upon the succession of a proprietor so young, with a character so
      well known, to a fortune so unparalleled, little speculation was
      afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed,
      for the space of three days, the behavior of the heir out-Heroded
      Herod, and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most
      enthusiastic admirers. Shameful debaucheries—flagrant
      treacheries—unheard-of atrocities—gave his trembling vassals
      quickly to understand that no servile submission on their part—no
      punctilios of conscience on his own—were thenceforward to prove
      any security against the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula.
      On the night of the fourth day, the stables of the castle
      Berlifitzing were discovered to be on fire; and the unanimous
      opinion of the neighborhood added the crime of the incendiary to
      the already hideous list of the Baron’s misdemeanors and
      enormities.

      But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young
      nobleman himself sat apparently buried in meditation, in a vast
      and desolate upper apartment of the family palace of
      Metzengerstein. The rich although faded tapestry hangings which
      swung gloomily upon the walls, represented the shadowy and
      majestic forms of a thousand illustrious ancestors. _Here_,
      rich-ermined priests, and pontifical dignitaries, familiarly
      seated with the autocrat and the sovereign, put a veto on the
      wishes of a temporal king, or restrained with the fiat of papal
      supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-enemy. _There_, the
      dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein—their muscular
      war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen foes—startled
      the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression; and _here_,
      again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames of days
      gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the
      strains of imaginary melody.

      But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen, to the
      gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing—or
      perhaps pondered upon some more novel, some more decided act of
      audacity—his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an
      enormous, and unnaturally colored horse, represented in the
      tapestry as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his
      rival. The horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood
      motionless and statue-like—while farther back, its discomfited
      rider perished by the dagger of a Metzengerstein.

      On Frederick’s lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became
      aware of the direction which his glance had, without his
      consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the
      contrary, he could by no means account for the overwhelming
      anxiety which appeared falling like a pall upon his senses. It
      was with difficulty that he reconciled his dreamy and incoherent
      feelings with the certainty of being awake. The longer he gazed
      the more absorbing became the spell—the more impossible did it
      appear that he could ever withdraw his glance from the
      fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without becoming
      suddenly more violent, with a compulsory exertion he diverted his
      attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming
      stables upon the windows of the apartment.

      The action, however, was but momentary, his gaze returned
      mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment,
      the head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its
      position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in
      compassion, over the prostrate body of its lord, was now
      extended, at full length, in the direction of the Baron. The
      eyes, before invisible, now wore an energetic and human
      expression, while they gleamed with a fiery and unusual red; and
      the distended lips of the apparently enraged horse left in full
      view his gigantic and disgusting teeth.

      Stupefied with terror, the young nobleman tottered to the door.
      As he threw it open, a flash of red light, streaming far into the
      chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the
      quivering tapestry, and he shuddered to perceive that shadow—as
      he staggered awhile upon the threshold—assuming the exact
      position, and precisely filling up the contour, of the relentless
      and triumphant murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.

      To lighten the depression of his spirits, the Baron hurried into
      the open air. At the principal gate of the palace he encountered
      three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril
      of their lives, they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a
      gigantic and fiery-colored horse.

      “Whose horse? Where did you get him?” demanded the youth, in a
      querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware
      that the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very
      counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.

      “He is your own property, sire,” replied one of the equerries,
      “at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying,
      all smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of
      the Castle Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the
      old Count’s stud of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray.
      But the grooms there disclaim any title to the creature; which is
      strange, since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow
      escape from the flames.

      “The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his
      forehead,” interrupted a second equerry, “I supposed them, of
      course, to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing—but all at
      the castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse.”

      “Extremely singular!” said the young Baron, with a musing air,
      and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words. “He is,
      as you say, a remarkable horse—a prodigious horse! although, as
      you very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable
      character; let him be mine, however,” he added, after a pause,
      “perhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even
      the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing.”

      “You are mistaken, my lord; the horse, as I think we mentioned,
      is _not_ from the stables of the Count. If such had been the
      case, we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence
      of a noble of your family.”

      “True!” observed the Baron, dryly, and at that instant a page of
      the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened color, and
      a precipitate step. He whispered into his master’s ear an account
      of the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry,
      in an apartment which he designated; entering, at the same time,
      into particulars of a minute and circumstantial character; but
      from the low tone of voice in which these latter were
      communicated, nothing escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of
      the equerries.

      The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a
      variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure,
      and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his
      countenance, as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber
      should be immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own
      possession.

      “Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter
      Berlifitzing?” said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after
      the departure of the page, the huge steed which that nobleman had
      adopted as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled fury,
      down the long avenue which extended from the château to the
      stables of Metzengerstein.

      “No!” said the Baron, turning abruptly toward the speaker, “dead!
      say you?”

      “It is indeed true, my lord; and, to a noble of your name, will
      be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence.”

      A rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener. “How
      died he?”

      “In his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his
      hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames.”

      “I-n-d-e-e-d-!” ejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and
      deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.

      “Indeed;” repeated the vassal.

      “Shocking!” said the youth, calmly, and turned quietly into the
      château.

      From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward
      demeanor of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von
      Metzengerstein. Indeed, his behavior disappointed every
      expectation, and proved little in accordance with the views of
      many a manoeuvering mamma; while his habits and manner, still
      less than formerly, offered any thing congenial with those of the
      neighboring aristocracy. He was never to be seen beyond the
      limits of his own domain, and, in this wide and social world, was
      utterly companionless—unless, indeed, that unnatural, impetuous,
      and fiery-colored horse, which he henceforward continually
      bestrode, had any mysterious right to the title of his friend.

      Numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long
      time, however, periodically came in. “Will the Baron honor our
      festivals with his presence?” “Will the Baron join us in a
      hunting of the boar?”—“Metzengerstein does not hunt;”
      “Metzengerstein will not attend,” were the haughty and laconic
      answers.

      These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious
      nobility. Such invitations became less cordial—less frequent—in
      time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count
      Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope “that the Baron
      might be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he
      disdained the company of his equals; and ride when he did not
      wish to ride, since he preferred the society of a horse.” This to
      be sure was a very silly explosion of hereditary pique; and
      merely proved how singularly unmeaning our sayings are apt to
      become, when we desire to be unusually energetic.

      The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the
      conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for
      the untimely loss of his parents—forgetting, however, his
      atrocious and reckless behavior during the short period
      immediately succeeding that bereavement. Some there were, indeed,
      who suggested a too haughty idea of self-consequence and dignity.
      Others again (among them may be mentioned the family physician)
      did not hesitate in speaking of morbid melancholy, and hereditary
      ill-health; while dark hints, of a more equivocal nature, were
      current among the multitude.

      Indeed, the Baron’s perverse attachment to his lately-acquired
      charger—an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from
      every fresh example of the animal’s ferocious and demon-like
      propensities—at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men,
      a hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon—at the dead
      hour of night—in sickness or in health—in calm or in tempest—the
      young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that
      colossal horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded
      with his own spirit.

      There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late
      events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania
      of the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space
      passed over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and
      was found to exceed, by an astounding difference, the wildest
      expectations of the most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no
      particular _name_ for the animal, although all the rest in his
      collection were distinguished by characteristic appellations. His
      stable, too, was appointed at a distance from the rest; and with
      regard to grooming and other necessary offices, none but the
      owner in person had ventured to officiate, or even to enter the
      enclosure of that particular stall. It was also to be observed,
      that although the three grooms, who had caught the steed as he
      fled from the conflagration at Berlifitzing, had succeeded in
      arresting his course, by means of a chain-bridle and noose—yet no
      one of the three could with any certainty affirm that he had,
      during that dangerous struggle, or at any period thereafter,
      actually placed his hand upon the body of the beast. Instances of
      peculiar intelligence in the demeanor of a noble and
      high-spirited horse are not to be supposed capable of exciting
      unreasonable attention—especially among men who, daily trained to
      the labors of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the
      sagacity of a horse—but there were certain circumstances which
      intruded themselves per force upon the most skeptical and
      phlegmatic; and it is said there were times when the animal
      caused the gaping crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from
      the deep and impressive meaning of his terrible stamp—times when
      the young Metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the
      rapid and searching expression of his earnest and human-looking
      eye.

      Among all the retinue of the Baron, however, none were found to
      doubt the ardor of that extraordinary affection which existed on
      the part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his
      horse; at least, none but an insignificant and misshapen little
      page, whose deformities were in everybody’s way, and whose
      opinions were of the least possible importance. He—if his ideas
      are worth mentioning at all—had the effrontery to assert that his
      master never vaulted into the saddle without an unaccountable and
      almost imperceptible shudder, and that, upon his return from
      every long-continued and habitual ride, an expression of
      triumphant malignity distorted every muscle in his countenance.

      One tempestuous night, Metzengerstein, awaking from a heavy
      slumber, descended like a maniac from his chamber, and, mounting
      in hot haste, bounded away into the mazes of the forest. An
      occurrence so common attracted no particular attention, but his
      return was looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his
      domestics, when, after some hours’ absence, the stupendous and
      magnificent battlements of the Chateau Metzengerstein, were
      discovered crackling and rocking to their very foundation, under
      the influence of a dense and livid mass of ungovernable fire.

      As the flames, when first seen, had already made so terrible a
      progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building
      were evidently futile, the astonished neighborhood stood idly
      around in silent and pathetic wonder. But a new and fearful
      object soon rivetted the attention of the multitude, and proved
      how much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings
      of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought
      about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.

      Up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the
      main entrance of the Château Metzengerstein, a steed, bearing an
      unbonneted and disordered rider, was seen leaping with an
      impetuosity which outstripped the very Demon of the Tempest.

      The career of the horseman was indisputably, on his own part,
      uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive
      struggle of his frame, gave evidence of superhuman exertion: but
      no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated
      lips, which were bitten through and through in the intensity of
      terror. One instant, and the clattering of hoofs resounded
      sharply and shrilly above the roaring of the flames and the
      shrieking of the winds—another, and, clearing at a single plunge
      the gate-way and the moat, the steed bounded far up the tottering
      staircases of the palace, and, with its rider, disappeared amid
      the whirlwind of chaotic fire.

      The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm
      sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building
      like a shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere,
      shot forth a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke
      settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal
      figure of—_a horse_.

THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER

      During the autumn of 18—, while on a tour through the extreme
      southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles
      of a certain _Maison de Santé_ or private mad-house, about which
      I had heard much, in Paris, from my medical friends. As I had
      never visited a place of the kind, I thought the opportunity too
      good to be lost; and so proposed to my travelling companion (a
      gentleman with whom I had made casual acquaintance a few days
      before), that we should turn aside, for an hour or so, and look
      through the establishment. To this he objected—pleading haste in
      the first place, and, in the second, a very usual horror at the
      sight of a lunatic. He begged me, however, not to let any mere
      courtesy towards himself interfere with the gratification of my
      curiosity, and said that he would ride on leisurely, so that I
      might overtake him during the day, or, at all events, during the
      next. As he bade me good-bye, I bethought me that there might be
      some difficulty in obtaining access to the premises, and
      mentioned my fears on this point. He replied that, in fact,
      unless I had personal knowledge of the superintendent, Monsieur
      Maillard, or some credential in the way of a letter, a difficulty
      might be found to exist, as the regulations of these private
      mad-houses were more rigid than the public hospital laws. For
      himself, he added, he had, some years since, made the
      acquaintance of Maillard, and would so far assist me as to ride
      up to the door and introduce me; although his feelings on the
      subject of lunacy would not permit of his entering the house.

      I thanked him, and, turning from the main road, we entered a
      grass-grown by-path, which, in half an hour, nearly lost itself
      in a dense forest, clothing the base of a mountain. Through this
      dank and gloomy wood we rode some two miles, when the _Maison de
      Santé_ came in view. It was a fantastic château, much
      dilapidated, and indeed scarcely tenantable through age and
      neglect. Its aspect inspired me with absolute dread, and,
      checking my horse, I half resolved to turn back. I soon, however,
      grew ashamed of my weakness, and proceeded.

      As we rode up to the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and
      the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward,
      this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him
      cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur
      Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the
      old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity,
      dignity, and authority which was very impressive.

      My friend, having presented me, mentioned my desire to inspect
      the establishment, and received Monsieur Maillard’s assurance
      that he would show me all attention, now took leave, and I saw
      him no more.

      When he had gone, the superintendent ushered me into a small and
      exceedingly neat parlor, containing, among other indications of
      refined taste, many books, drawings, pots of flowers, and musical
      instruments. A cheerful fire blazed upon the hearth. At a piano,
      singing an aria from Bellini, sat a young and very beautiful
      woman, who, at my entrance, paused in her song, and received me
      with graceful courtesy. Her voice was low, and her whole manner
      subdued. I thought, too, that I perceived the traces of sorrow in
      her countenance, which was excessively, although to my taste, not
      unpleasingly, pale. She was attired in deep mourning, and excited
      in my bosom a feeling of mingled respect, interest, and
      admiration.

      I had heard, at Paris, that the institution of Monsieur Maillard
      was managed upon what is vulgarly termed the “system of
      soothing”—that all punishments were avoided—that even confinement
      was seldom resorted to—that the patients, while secretly watched,
      were left much apparent liberty, and that most of them were
      permitted to roam about the house and grounds in the ordinary
      apparel of persons in right mind.

      Keeping these impressions in view, I was cautious in what I said
      before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane;
      and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her
      eyes which half led me to imagine she was not. I confined my
      remarks, therefore, to general topics, and to such as I thought
      would not be displeasing or exciting even to a lunatic. She
      replied in a perfectly rational manner to all that I said; and
      even her original observations were marked with the soundest good
      sense, but a long acquaintance with the metaphysics of mania, had
      taught me to put no faith in such evidence of sanity, and I
      continued to practise, throughout the interview, the caution with
      which I commenced it.

      Presently a smart footman in livery brought in a tray with fruit,
      wine, and other refreshments, of which I partook, the lady soon
      afterward leaving the room. As she departed I turned my eyes in
      an inquiring manner toward my host.

      “No,” he said, “oh, no—a member of my family—my niece, and a most
      accomplished woman.”

      “I beg a thousand pardons for the suspicion,” I replied, “but of
      course you will know how to excuse me. The excellent
      administration of your affairs here is well understood in Paris,
      and I thought it just possible, you know—”

      “Yes, yes—say no more—or rather it is myself who should thank you
      for the commendable prudence you have displayed. We seldom find
      so much of forethought in young men; and, more than once, some
      unhappy contre-temps has occurred in consequence of
      thoughtlessness on the part of our visitors. While my former
      system was in operation, and my patients were permitted the
      privilege of roaming to and fro at will, they were often aroused
      to a dangerous frenzy by injudicious persons who called to
      inspect the house. Hence I was obliged to enforce a rigid system
      of exclusion; and none obtained access to the premises upon whose
      discretion I could not rely.”

      “While your former system was in operation!” I said, repeating
      his words—“do I understand you, then, to say that the ‘soothing
      system’ of which I have heard so much is no longer in force?”

      “It is now,” he replied, “several weeks since we have concluded
      to renounce it forever.”

      “Indeed! you astonish me!”

      “We found it, sir,” he said, with a sigh, “absolutely necessary
      to return to the old usages. The danger of the soothing system
      was, at all times, appalling; and its advantages have been much
      overrated. I believe, sir, that in this house it has been given a
      fair trial, if ever in any. We did every thing that rational
      humanity could suggest. I am sorry that you could not have paid
      us a visit at an earlier period, that you might have judged for
      yourself. But I presume you are conversant with the soothing
      practice—with its details.”

      “Not altogether. What I have heard has been at third or fourth
      hand.”

      “I may state the system, then, in general terms, as one in which
      the patients were _menagés_—humored. We contradicted no fancies
      which entered the brains of the mad. On the contrary, we not only
      indulged but encouraged them; and many of our most permanent
      cures have been thus effected. There is no argument which so
      touches the feeble reason of the madman as the argumentum ad
      absurdum. We have had men, for example, who fancied themselves
      chickens. The cure was, to insist upon the thing as a fact—to
      accuse the patient of stupidity in not sufficiently perceiving it
      to be a fact—and thus to refuse him any other diet for a week
      than that which properly appertains to a chicken. In this manner
      a little corn and gravel were made to perform wonders.”

      “But was this species of acquiescence all?”

      “By no means. We put much faith in amusements of a simple kind,
      such as music, dancing, gymnastic exercises generally, cards,
      certain classes of books, and so forth. We affected to treat each
      individual as if for some ordinary physical disorder; and the
      word ‘lunacy’ was never employed. A great point was to set each
      lunatic to guard the actions of all the others. To repose
      confidence in the understanding or discretion of a madman, is to
      gain him body and soul. In this way we were enabled to dispense
      with an expensive body of keepers.”

      “And you had no punishments of any kind?”

      “None.”

      “And you never confined your patients?”

      “Very rarely. Now and then, the malady of some individual growing
      to a crisis, or taking a sudden turn of fury, we conveyed him to
      a secret cell, lest his disorder should infect the rest, and
      there kept him until we could dismiss him to his friends—for with
      the raging maniac we have nothing to do. He is usually removed to
      the public hospitals.”

      “And you have now changed all this—and you think for the better?”

      “Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its
      dangers. It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the _Maisons
      de Santé_ of France.”

      “I am very much surprised,” I said, “at what you tell me; for I
      made sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for
      mania existed in any portion of the country.”

      “You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time
      will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is
      going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others.
      Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now
      about our _Maisons de Santé_, it is clear that some ignoramus has
      misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently
      recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take
      you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my
      opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its
      operation, is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised.”

      “Your own?” I inquired—“one of your own invention?”

      “I am proud,” he replied, “to acknowledge that it is—at least in
      some measure.”

      In this manner I conversed with Monsieur Maillard for an hour or
      two, during which he showed me the gardens and conservatories of
      the place.

      “I cannot let you see my patients,” he said, “just at present. To
      a sensitive mind there is always more or less of the shocking in
      such exhibitions; and I do not wish to spoil your appetite for
      dinner. We will dine. I can give you some veal a la Menehoult,
      with cauliflowers in _velouté_ sauce—after that a glass of Clos
      de Vougeot—then your nerves will be sufficiently steadied.”

      At six, dinner was announced; and my host conducted me into a
      large _salle à manger_, where a very numerous company were
      assembled—twenty-five or thirty in all. They were, apparently,
      people of rank—certainly of high breeding—although their
      habiliments, I thought, were extravagantly rich, partaking
      somewhat too much of the ostentatious finery of the _vielle
      cour_. I noticed that at least two-thirds of these guests were
      ladies; and some of the latter were by no means accoutred in what
      a Parisian would consider good taste at the present day. Many
      females, for example, whose age could not have been less than
      seventy were bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such as rings,
      bracelets, and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms
      shamefully bare. I observed, too, that very few of the dresses
      were well made—or, at least, that very few of them fitted the
      wearers. In looking about, I discovered the interesting girl to
      whom Monsieur Maillard had presented me in the little parlor; but
      my surprise was great to see her wearing a hoop and farthingale,
      with high-heeled shoes, and a dirty cap of Brussels lace, so much
      too large for her that it gave her face a ridiculously diminutive
      expression. When I had first seen her, she was attired, most
      becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity, in
      short, about the dress of the whole party, which, at first,
      caused me to recur to my original idea of the “soothing system,”
      and to fancy that Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive
      me until after dinner, that I might experience no uncomfortable
      feelings during the repast, at finding myself dining with
      lunatics; but I remembered having been informed, in Paris, that
      the southern provincialists were a peculiarly eccentric people,
      with a vast number of antiquated notions; and then, too, upon
      conversing with several members of the company, my apprehensions
      were immediately and fully dispelled.

      The dining-room itself, although perhaps sufficiently comfortable
      and of good dimensions, had nothing too much of elegance about
      it. For example, the floor was uncarpeted; in France, however, a
      carpet is frequently dispensed with. The windows, too, were
      without curtains; the shutters, being shut, were securely
      fastened with iron bars, applied diagonally, after the fashion of
      our ordinary shop-shutters. The apartment, I observed, formed, in
      itself, a wing of the château, and thus the windows were on three
      sides of the parallelogram, the door being at the other. There
      were no less than ten windows in all.

      The table was superbly set out. It was loaded with plate, and
      more than loaded with delicacies. The profusion was absolutely
      barbaric. There were meats enough to have feasted the Anakim.
      Never, in all my life, had I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an
      expenditure of the good things of life. There seemed very little
      taste, however, in the arrangements; and my eyes, accustomed to
      quiet lights, were sadly offended by the prodigious glare of a
      multitude of wax candles, which, in silver candelabra, were
      deposited upon the table, and all about the room, wherever it was
      possible to find a place. There were several active servants in
      attendance; and, upon a large table, at the farther end of the
      apartment, were seated seven or eight people with fiddles, fifes,
      trombones, and a drum. These fellows annoyed me very much, at
      intervals, during the repast, by an infinite variety of noises,
      which were intended for music, and which appeared to afford much
      entertainment to all present, with the exception of myself.

      Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of
      the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up
      of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts
      of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be
      quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly
      at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite,
      did justice to the good cheer set before me.

      The conversation, in the meantime, was spirited and general. The
      ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly
      all the company were well educated; and my host was a world of
      good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to
      speak of his position as superintendent of a_Maison de Santé_;
      and, indeed, the topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a
      favorite one with all present. A great many amusing stories were
      told, having reference to the _whims_ of the patients.

      “We had a fellow here once,” said a fat little gentleman, who sat
      at my right,—“a fellow that fancied himself a tea-pot; and by the
      way, is it not especially singular how often this particular
      crotchet has entered the brain of the lunatic? There is scarcely
      an insane asylum in France which cannot supply a human tea-pot.
      Our gentleman was a Britannia-ware tea-pot, and was careful to
      polish himself every morning with buckskin and whiting.”

      “And then,” said a tall man just opposite, “we had here, not long
      ago, a person who had taken it into his head that he was a
      donkey—which allegorically speaking, you will say, was quite
      true. He was a troublesome patient; and we had much ado to keep
      him within bounds. For a long time he would eat nothing but
      thistles; but of this idea we soon cured him by insisting upon
      his eating nothing else. Then he was perpetually kicking out his
      heels—so—so—”

      “Mr. De Kock! I will thank you to behave yourself!” here
      interrupted an old lady, who sat next to the speaker. “Please
      keep your feet to yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it
      necessary, pray, to illustrate a remark in so practical a style?
      Our friend here can surely comprehend you without all this. Upon
      my word, you are nearly as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate
      imagined himself. Your acting is very natural, as I live.”

      “Mille pardons! Ma’m’selle!” replied Monsieur De Kock, thus
      addressed—“a thousand pardons! I had no intention of offending.
      Ma’m’selle Laplace—Monsieur De Kock will do himself the honor of
      taking wine with you.”

      Here Monsieur De Kock bowed low, kissed his hand with much
      ceremony, and took wine with Ma’m’selle Laplace.

      “Allow me, mon ami,” now said Monsieur Maillard, addressing
      myself, “allow me to send you a morsel of this veal _à la St.
      Menehoult_—you will find it particularly fine.”

      At this instant three sturdy waiters had just succeeded in
      depositing safely upon the table an enormous dish, or trencher,
      containing what I supposed to be the “_monstrum, horrendum,
      informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum_.” A closer scrutiny assured
      me, however, that it was only a small calf roasted whole, and set
      upon its knees, with an apple in its mouth, as is the English
      fashion of dressing a hare.

      “Thank you, no,” I replied; “to say the truth, I am not
      particularly partial to veal _à la St_.—what is it?—for I do not
      find that it altogether agrees with me. I will change my plate,
      however, and try some of the rabbit.”

      There were several side-dishes on the table, containing what
      appeared to be the ordinary French rabbit—a very delicious
      morceau, which I can recommend.

      “Pierre,” cried the host, “change this gentleman’s plate, and
      give him a side-piece of this rabbit au-chat.”

      “This what?” said I.

      “This rabbit _au-chat_.”

      “Why, thank you—upon second thoughts, no. I will just help myself
      to some of the ham.”

      There is no knowing what one eats, thought I to myself, at the
      tables of these people of the province. I will have none of their
      rabbit _au-chat_—and, for the matter of that, none of their
      _cat-au-rabbit_ either.

      “And then,” said a cadaverous looking personage, near the foot of
      the table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had
      been broken off,—“and then, among other oddities, we had a
      patient, once upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained
      himself to be a Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in
      his hand, soliciting his friends to try a small slice from the
      middle of his leg.”

      “He was a great fool, beyond doubt,” interposed some one, “but
      not to be compared with a certain individual whom we all know,
      with the exception of this strange gentleman. I mean the man who
      took himself for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with
      a pop and a fizz, in this fashion.”

      Here the speaker, very rudely, as I thought, put his right thumb
      in his left cheek, withdrew it with a sound resembling the
      popping of a cork, and then, by a dexterous movement of the
      tongue upon the teeth, created a sharp hissing and fizzing, which
      lasted for several minutes, in imitation of the frothing of
      champagne. This behavior, I saw plainly, was not very pleasing to
      Monsieur Maillard; but that gentleman said nothing, and the
      conversation was resumed by a very lean little man in a big wig.

      “And then there was an ignoramus,” said he, “who mistook himself
      for a frog, which, by the way, he resembled in no little degree.
      I wish you could have seen him, sir,”—here the speaker addressed
      myself—“it would have done your heart good to see the natural
      airs that he put on. Sir, if that man was not a frog, I can only
      observe that it is a pity he was not. His croak
      thus—o-o-o-o-gh—o-o-o-o-gh! was the finest note in the world—B
      flat; and when he put his elbows upon the table thus—after taking
      a glass or two of wine—and distended his mouth, thus, and rolled
      up his eyes, thus, and winked them with excessive rapidity, thus,
      why then, sir, I take it upon myself to say, positively, that you
      would have been lost in admiration of the genius of the man.”

      “I have no doubt of it,” I said.

      “And then,” said somebody else, “then there was Petit Gaillard,
      who thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed
      because he could not take himself between his own finger and
      thumb.”

      “And then there was Jules Desoulières, who was a very singular
      genius, indeed, and went mad with the idea that he was a pumpkin.
      He persecuted the cook to make him up into pies—a thing which the
      cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means
      sure that a pumpkin pie _à la Desoulières_ would not have been
      very capital eating indeed!”

      “You astonish me!” said I; and I looked inquisitively at Monsieur
      Maillard.

      “Ha! ha! ha!” said that gentleman—“he! he! he!—hi! hi! hi!—ho!
      ho! ho!—hu! hu! hu!—very good indeed! You must not be astonished,
      _mon ami;_ our friend here is a wit—a _drôle_—you must not
      understand him to the letter.”

      “And then,” said some other one of the party,—“then there was
      Bouffon Le Grand—another extraordinary personage in his way. He
      grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two
      heads. One of these he maintained to be the head of Cicero; the
      other he imagined a composite one, being Demosthenes’ from the
      top of the forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham’s from the
      mouth to the chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he
      would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a
      man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory,
      and could not refrain from display. For example, he used to leap
      upon the dinner-table thus, and—and—”

      Here a friend, at the side of the speaker, put a hand upon his
      shoulder and whispered a few words in his ear; upon which he
      ceased talking with great suddenness, and sank back within his
      chair.

      “And then,” said the friend who had whispered, “there was
      Boullard, the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum because, in
      fact, he was seized with the droll, but not altogether
      irrational, crotchet, that he had been converted into a
      tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin.
      He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in this
      manner—so—”

      Here the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper,
      performed an exactly similar office for himself.

      “But then,” cried the old lady, at the top of her voice, “your
      Monsieur Boullard was a madman, and a very silly madman at best;
      for who, allow me to ask you, ever heard of a human tee-totum?
      The thing is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person,
      as you know. She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common
      sense, and gave pleasure to all who had the honor of her
      acquaintance. She found, upon mature deliberation, that, by some
      accident, she had been turned into a chicken-cock; but, as such,
      she behaved with propriety. She flapped her wings with prodigious
      effect—so—so—so—and, as for her crow, it was delicious!
      Cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-de-doo
      dooo-do-o-o-o-o-o-o!”

      “Madame Joyeuse, I will thank you to behave yourself!” here
      interrupted our host, very angrily. “You can either conduct
      yourself as a lady should do, or you can quit the table
      forthwith—take your choice.”

      The lady (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame
      Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just
      given) blushed up to the eyebrows, and seemed exceedingly abashed
      at the reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable
      in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was
      my beautiful girl of the little parlor.

      “Oh, Madame Joyeuse was a fool!” she exclaimed, “but there was
      really much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugénie
      Salsafette. She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young
      lady, who thought the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and
      wished to dress herself, always, by getting outside instead of
      inside of her clothes. It is a thing very easily done, after all.
      You have only to do so—and then so—so—so—and then so—so—so—and
      then so—so—and then—”

      “Mon dieu! Ma’m’selle Salsafette!” here cried a dozen voices at
      once. “What are you about?—forbear!—that is sufficient!—we see,
      very plainly, how it is done!—hold! hold!” and several persons
      were already leaping from their seats to withhold Ma’m’selle
      Salsafette from putting herself upon a par with the Medicean
      Venus, when the point was very effectually and suddenly
      accomplished by a series of loud screams, or yells, from some
      portion of the main body of the _château_.

      My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but
      the rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of
      reasonable people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all
      grew as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their
      seats, sat quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for
      a repetition of the sound. It came again—louder and seemingly
      nearer—and then a third time very loud, and then a fourth time
      with a vigor evidently diminished. At this apparent dying away of
      the noise, the spirits of the company were immediately regained,
      and all was life and anecdote as before. I now ventured to
      inquire the cause of the disturbance.

      “A mere _bagatelle_,” said Monsieur Maillard. “We are used to
      these things, and care really very little about them. The
      lunatics, every now and then, get up a howl in concert; one
      starting another, as is sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at
      night. It occasionally happens, however, that the _concerto_
      yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort at breaking loose;
      when, of course, some little danger is to be apprehended.”

      “And how many have you in charge?”

      “At present we have not more than ten, altogether.”

      “Principally females, I presume?”

      “Oh, no—every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell
      you.”

      “Indeed! I have always understood that the majority of lunatics
      were of the gentler sex.”

      “It is generally so, but not always. Some time ago, there were
      about twenty-seven patients here; and, of that number, no less
      than eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very
      much, as you see.”

      “Yes—have changed very much, as you see,” here interrupted the
      gentleman who had broken the shins of Ma’m’selle Laplace.

      “Yes—have changed very much, as you see!” chimed in the whole
      company at once.

      “Hold your tongues, every one of you!” said my host, in a great
      rage. Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for
      nearly a minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to
      the letter, and thrusting out her tongue, which was an
      excessively long one, held it very resignedly, with both hands,
      until the end of the entertainment.

      “And this gentlewoman,” said I, to Monsieur Maillard, bending
      over and addressing him in a whisper—“this good lady who has just
      spoken, and who gives us the cock-a-doodle-de-doo—she, I presume,
      is harmless—quite harmless, eh?”

      “Harmless!” ejaculated he, in unfeigned surprise, “why—why, what
      can you mean?”

      “Only slightly touched?” said I, touching my head. “I take it for
      granted that she is not particularly not dangerously affected,
      eh?”

      “_Mon dieu!_ what is it you imagine? This lady, my particular old
      friend Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself. She has
      her little eccentricities, to be sure—but then, you know, all old
      women—all _very_ old women—are more or less eccentric!”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure—and then the rest of these
      ladies and gentlemen—”

      “Are my friends and keepers,” interupted Monsieur Maillard,
      drawing himself up with _hauteur_,—“my very good friends and
      assistants.”

      “What! all of them?” I asked,—“the women and all?”

      “Assuredly,” he said,—“we could not do at all without the women;
      they are the best lunatic nurses in the world; they have a way of
      their own, you know; their bright eyes have a marvellous
      effect—something like the fascination of the snake, you know.”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure! They behave a little odd,
      eh?—they are a little queer, eh?—don’t you think so?”

      “Odd!—queer!—why, do you really think so? We are not very
      prudish, to be sure, here in the South—do pretty much as we
      please—enjoy life, and all that sort of thing, you know—”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure.”

      “And then, perhaps, this Clos de Vougeot is a little heady, you
      know—a little strong—you understand, eh?”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure. By the bye, Monsieur, did I
      understand you to say that the system you have adopted, in place
      of the celebrated soothing system, was one of very rigorous
      severity?”

      “By no means. Our confinement is necessarily close; but the
      treatment—the medical treatment, I mean—is rather agreeable to
      the patients than otherwise.”

      “And the new system is one of your own invention?”

      “Not altogether. Some portions of it are referable to Professor
      Tarr, of whom you have, necessarily, heard; and, again, there are
      modifications in my plan which I am happy to acknowledge as
      belonging of right to the celebrated Fether, with whom, if I
      mistake not, you have the honor of an intimate acquaintance.”

      “I am quite ashamed to confess,” I replied, “that I have never
      even heard the names of either gentleman before.”

      “Good heavens!” ejaculated my host, drawing back his chair
      abruptly, and uplifting his hands. “I surely do not hear you
      aright! You did not intend to say, eh? that you had never heard
      either of the learned Doctor Tarr, or of the celebrated Professor
      Fether?”

      “I am forced to acknowledge my ignorance,” I replied; “but the
      truth should be held inviolate above all things. Nevertheless, I
      feel humbled to the dust, not to be acquainted with the works of
      these, no doubt, extraordinary men. I will seek out their
      writings forthwith, and peruse them with deliberate care.
      Monsieur Maillard, you have really—I must confess it—you have
      really—made me ashamed of myself!”

      And this was the fact.

      “Say no more, my good young friend,” he said kindly, pressing my
      hand,—“join me now in a glass of Sauterne.”

      We drank. The company followed our example without stint. They
      chatted—they jested—they laughed—they perpetrated a thousand
      absurdities—the fiddles shrieked—the drum row-de-dowed—the
      trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris—and the
      whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines
      gained the ascendancy, became at length a sort of pandemonium in
      petto. In the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some
      bottles of Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our
      conversation at the top of the voice. A word spoken in an
      ordinary key stood no more chance of being heard than the voice
      of a fish from the bottom of Niagara Falls.

      “And, sir,” said I, screaming in his ear, “you mentioned
      something before dinner about the danger incurred in the old
      system of soothing. How is that?”

      “Yes,” he replied, “there was, occasionally, very great danger
      indeed. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and,
      in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor
      Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large
      unattended. A lunatic may be ‘soothed,’ as it is called, for a
      time, but, in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His
      cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in
      view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the
      dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the
      metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of
      mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high
      time to put him in a straitjacket.”

      “But the danger, my dear sir, of which you were speaking, in your
      own experience—during your control of this house—have you had
      practical reason to think liberty hazardous in the case of a
      lunatic?”

      “Here?—in my own experience?—why, I may say, yes. For example:—no
      very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this
      very house. The ‘soothing system,’ you know, was then in
      operation, and the patients were at large. They behaved
      remarkably well—especially so—any one of sense might have known
      that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact,
      that the fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough,
      one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and
      foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if
      they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had
      usurped the offices of the keepers.”

      “You don’t tell me so! I never heard of any thing so absurd in my
      life!”

      “Fact—it all came to pass by means of a stupid fellow—a
      lunatic—who, by some means, had taken it into his head that he
      had invented a better system of government than any ever heard of
      before—of lunatic government, I mean. He wished to give his
      invention a trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the
      patients to join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the
      reigning powers.”

      “And he really succeeded?”

      “No doubt of it. The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange
      places. Not that exactly either—for the madmen had been free, but
      the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am
      sorry to say, in a very cavalier manner.”

      “But I presume a counter-revolution was soon effected. This
      condition of things could not have long existed. The country
      people in the neighborhood—visitors coming to see the
      establishment—would have given the alarm.”

      “There you are out. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He
      admitted no visitors at all—with the exception, one day, of a
      very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to
      be afraid. He let him in to see the place—just by way of
      variety,—to have a little fun with him. As soon as he had
      gammoned him sufficiently, he let him out, and sent him about his
      business.”

      “And how long, then, did the madmen reign?”

      “Oh, a very long time, indeed—a month certainly—how much longer I
      can’t precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly
      season of it—that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby
      clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The
      cellars of the château were well stocked with wine; and these
      madmen are just the devils that know how to drink it. They lived
      well, I can tell you.”

      “And the treatment—what was the particular species of treatment
      which the leader of the rebels put into operation?”

      “Why, as for that, a madman is not necessarily a fool, as I have
      already observed; and it is my honest opinion that his treatment
      was a much better treatment than that which it superseded. It was
      a very capital system indeed—simple—neat—no trouble at all—in
      fact it was delicious—it was—”

      Here my host’s observations were cut short by another series of
      yells, of the same character as those which had previously
      disconcerted us. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from
      persons rapidly approaching.

      “Gracious heavens!” I ejaculated—“the lunatics have most
      undoubtedly broken loose.”

      “I very much fear it is so,” replied Monsieur Maillard, now
      becoming excessively pale. He had scarcely finished the sentence,
      before loud shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the
      windows; and, immediately afterward, it became evident that some
      persons outside were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room.
      The door was beaten with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and
      the shutters were wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence.

      A scene of the most terrible confusion ensued. Monsieur Maillard,
      to my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board.
      I had expected more resolution at his hands. The members of the
      orchestra, who, for the last fifteen minutes, had been seemingly
      too much intoxicated to do duty, now sprang all at once to their
      feet and to their instruments, and, scrambling upon their table,
      broke out, with one accord, into, “Yankee Doodle,” which they
      performed, if not exactly in tune, at least with an energy
      superhuman, during the whole of the uproar.

      Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and
      glasses, leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been
      restrained from leaping there before. As soon as he fairly
      settled himself, he commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a
      very capital one, if it could only have been heard. At the same
      moment, the man with the teetotum predilection, set himself to
      spinning around the apartment, with immense energy, and with arms
      outstretched at right angles with his body; so that he had all
      the air of a tee-totum in fact, and knocked everybody down that
      happened to get in his way. And now, too, hearing an incredible
      popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered at length, that it
      proceeded from the person who performed the bottle of that
      delicate drink during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man
      croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every
      note that he uttered. And, in the midst of all this, the
      continuous braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old
      friend, Madame Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor
      lady, she appeared so terribly perplexed. All she did, however,
      was to stand up in a corner, by the fireplace, and sing out
      incessantly at the top of her voice, “Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!”

      And now came the climax—the catastrophe of the drama. As no
      resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was
      offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten
      windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in.
      But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with
      which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down
      among us _pêle-mêle_, fighting, stamping, scratching, and
      howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be
      chimpanzees, ourang-outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of
      Good Hope.

      I received a terrible beating—after which I rolled under a sofa
      and lay still. After lying there some fifteen minutes, during
      which time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in
      the room, I came to same satisfactory _dénouement_ of this
      tragedy. Monsieur Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account
      of the lunatic who had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been
      merely relating his own exploits. This gentleman had, indeed,
      some two or three years before, been the superintendent of the
      establishment, but grew crazy himself, and so became a patient.
      This fact was unknown to the travelling companion who introduced
      me. The keepers, ten in number, having been suddenly overpowered,
      were first well tarred, then carefully feathered, and then shut
      up in underground cells. They had been so imprisoned for more
      than a month, during which period Monsieur Maillard had
      generously allowed them not only the tar and feathers (which
      constituted his “system”), but some bread and abundance of water.
      The latter was pumped on them daily. At length, one escaping
      through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.

      The “soothing system,” with important modifications, has been
      resumed at the _château;_ yet I cannot help agreeing with
      Monsieur Maillard, that his own “treatment” was a very capital
      one of its kind. As he justly observed, it was “simple—neat—and
      gave no trouble at all—not the least.”

      I have only to add that, although I have searched every library
      in Europe for the works of Doctor _Tarr_ and Professor _Fether_,
      I have, up to the present day, utterly failed in my endeavors at
      procuring an edition.

THE LITERARY LIFE OF THINGUM BOB, ESQ.

LATE EDITOR OF THE “GOOSETHERUMFOODLE.”
By Himself

      I am now growing in years, and—since I understand that
      Shakespeare and Mr. Emmons are deceased—it is not impossible that
      I may even die. It has occurred to me, therefore, that I may as
      well retire from the field of Letters and repose upon my laurels.
      But I am ambitious of signalizing my abdication of the literary
      sceptre by some important bequest to posterity; and, perhaps, I
      cannot do a better thing than just pen for it an account of my
      earlier career. My name, indeed, has been so long and so
      constantly before the public eye, that I am not only willing to
      admit the naturalness of the interest which it has everywhere
      excited, but ready to satisfy the extreme curiosity which it has
      inspired. In fact, it is no more than the duty of him who
      achieves greatness to leave behind him, in his ascent, such
      landmarks as may guide others to be great. I propose, therefore,
      in the present paper, (which I had some idea of calling
      “Memoranda to serve for the Literary History of America,”) to
      give a detail of those important, yet feeble and tottering first
      steps, by which, at length, I attained the high road to the
      pinnacle of human renown.

      Of one’s very remote ancestors it is superfluous to say much. My
      father, Thomas Bob, Esq., stood for many years at the summit of
      his profession, which was that of a merchant-barber, in the city
      of Smug. His warehouse was the resort of all the principal people
      of the place, and especially of the editorial corps—a body which
      inspires all about it with profound veneration and awe. For my
      own part, I regarded them as gods, and drank in with avidity the
      rich wit and wisdom which continuously flowed from their august
      mouths during the process of what is styled “lather.” My first
      moment of positive inspiration must be dated from that
      ever-memorable epoch, when the brilliant conductor of the
      “Gad-Fly,” in the intervals of the important process just
      mentioned, recited aloud, before a conclave of our apprentices,
      an inimitable poem in honor of the “Only Genuine Oil-of-Bob,” (so
      called from its talented inventor, my father,) and for which
      effusion the editor of the “Fly” was remunerated with a regal
      liberality by the firm of Thomas Bob & company, merchant-barbers.

      The genius of the stanzas to the “Oil-of-Bob” first breathed into
      me, I say, the divine _afflatus_. I resolved at once to become a
      great man, and to commence by becoming a great poet. That very
      evening I fell upon my knees at the feet of my father.

      “Father,” I said, “pardon me!—but I have a soul above lather. It
      is my firm intention to cut the shop. I would be an editor—I
      would be a poet—I would pen stanzas to the ‘Oil-of-Bob.’ Pardon
      me and aid me to be great!”

      “My dear Thingum,” replied my father, (I had been christened
      Thingum after a wealthy relative so surnamed,) “My dear Thingum,”
      he said, raising me from my knees by the ears—“Thingum, my boy,
      you’re a trump, and take after your father in having a soul. You
      have an immense head, too, and it must hold a great many brains.
      This I have long seen, and therefore had thoughts of making you a
      lawyer. The business, however, has grown ungenteel, and that of a
      politician don’t pay. Upon the whole you judge wisely;—the trade
      of editor is best:—and if you can be a poet at the same time,—as
      most of the editors are, by the by,—why you will kill two birds
      with one stone. To encourage you in the beginning of things, I
      will allow you a garret; pen, ink, and paper; a rhyming
      dictionary; and a copy of the ‘Gad-Fly.’ I suppose you would
      scarcely demand any more.”

      “I would be an ungrateful villain if I did,” I replied with
      enthusiasm. “Your generosity is boundless. I will repay it by
      making you the father of a genius.”

      Thus ended my conference with the best of men, and immediately
      upon its termination, I betook myself with zeal to my poetical
      labors; as upon these, chiefly, I founded my hopes of ultimate
      elevation to the editorial chair.

      In my first attempts at composition I found the stanzas to “The
      Oil-of-Bob” rather a draw-back than otherwise. Their splendor
      more dazzled than enlightened me. The contemplation of their
      excellence tended, naturally, to discourage me by comparison with
      my own abortions; so that for a long time I labored in vain. At
      length there came into my head one of those exquisitely original
      ideas which now and then _will_ permeate the brain of a man of
      genius. It was this:—or, rather, thus was it carried into
      execution. From the rubbish of an old book-stall, in a very
      remote corner of the town, I got together several antique and
      altogether unknown or forgotten volumes. The bookseller sold them
      to me for a song. From one of these, which purported to be a
      translation of one Dante’s “Inferno,” I copied with remarkable
      neatness a long passage about a man named Ugolino, who had a
      parcel of brats. From another which contained a good many old
      plays by some person whose name I forget, I extracted in the same
      manner, and with the same care, a great number of lines about
      “angels” and “ministers saying grace,” and “goblins damned,” and
      more besides of that sort. From a third, which was the
      composition of some blind man or other, either a Greek or a
      Choctaw—I cannot be at the pains of remembering every trifle
      exactly—I took about fifty verses beginning with “Achilles’
      wrath,” and “grease,” and something else. From a fourth, which I
      recollect was also the work of a blind man, I selected a page or
      two all about “hail” and “holy light”; and although a blind man
      has no business to write about light, still the verses were
      sufficiently good in their way.

      Having made fair copies of these poems, I signed every one of
      them “Oppodeldoc,” (a fine sonorous name,) and, doing each up
      nicely in a separate envelope, I despatched one to each of the
      four principal Magazines, with a request for speedy insertion and
      prompt pay. The result of this well conceived plan, however, (the
      success of which would have saved me much trouble in after life,)
      served to convince me that some editors are not to be bamboozled,
      and gave the _coup-de-grace_ (as they say in France,) to my
      nascent hopes, (as they say in the city of the transcendentals.)

      The fact is, that each and every one of the Magazines in
      question, gave Mr. “Oppodeldoc” a complete using-up, in the
      “Monthly Notices to Correspondents.” The “Hum-Drum” gave him a
      dressing after this fashion:

      “‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) has sent us a long _tirade_
      concerning a bedlamite whom he styles ‘Ugolino,’ who had a great
      many children that should have been all whipped and sent to bed
      without their suppers. The whole affair is exceedingly tame—not
      to say _flat_. ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) is entirely devoid
      of imagination—and imagination, in our humble opinion, is not
      only the soul of Poesy, but also its very heart. ‘Oppodeldoc,’
      (whoever he is,) has the audacity to demand of us, for his
      twattle, a ‘speedy insertion and prompt pay.’ We neither insert
      nor purchase any stuff of the sort. There can be no doubt,
      however, that he would meet with a ready sale for all the
      balderdash he can scribble, at the office of either the
      ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ the ‘Lollipop,’ or the ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’”

      All this, it must be acknowledged, was very severe upon
      “Oppodeldoc”—but the unkindest cut was putting the word Poesy in
      small caps. In those five pre-eminent letters what a world of
      bitterness is there not involved!

      But “Oppodeldoc” was punished with equal severity in the
      “Rowdy-Dow,” which spoke thus:

      “We have received a most singular and insolent communication from
      a person (whoever he is,) signing himself ‘Oppodeldoc’—thus
      desecrating the greatness of the illustrious Roman Emperor so
      named. Accompanying the letter of ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,)
      we find sundry lines of most disgusting and unmeaning rant about
      ‘angels and ministers of grace’—rant such as no madman short of a
      Nat Lee, or an ‘Oppodeldoc,’ could possibly perpetrate. And for
      this trash of trash, we are modestly requested to ‘pay promptly.’
      No sir—no! We pay for nothing of _that_ sort. Apply to the
      ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Lollipop,’ or the ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’ These
      _periodicals_ will undoubtedly accept any literary offal you may
      send them—and as undoubtedly _promise_ to pay for it.”

      This was bitter indeed upon poor “Oppodeldoc”; but, in this
      instance, the weight of the satire falls upon the “Hum-drum,” the
      “Lollipop,” and the “Goosetherumfoodle,” who are pungently styled
      “_periodicals_”—in Italics, too—a thing that must have cut them
      to the heart.

      Scarcely less savage was the “Lollipop,” which thus discoursed:

      “Some _individual_, who rejoices in the appellation ‘Oppodeldoc,’
      (to what low uses are the names of the illustrious dead too often
      applied!) has enclosed us some fifty or sixty _verses_ commencing
      after this fashion:

      Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
      Of woes unnumbered, &c., &c., &c., &c.

      “‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) is respectfully informed that
      there is not a printer’s devil in our office who is not in the
      daily habit of composing better _lines_. Those of ‘Oppodeldoc’
      will not _scan_. ‘Oppodeldoc’ should learn to _count_. But why he
      should have conceived the idea that _we_, (of all others, _we!_)
      would disgrace our pages with his ineffable nonsense, is utterly
      beyond comprehension. Why, the absurd twattle is scarcely good
      enough for the ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ the
      ‘Goosetherumfoodle’—things that are in the practice of publishing
      ‘Mother Goose’s Melodies’ as original lyrics. And ‘Oppodeldoc’
      (whoever he is,) has even the assurance to demand _pay_ for this
      drivel. Does ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) know—is he aware that
      we could not be paid to insert it?”

      As I perused this I felt myself growing gradually smaller and
      smaller, and when I came to the point at which the editor sneered
      at the poem as “verses” there was little more than an ounce of me
      left. As for “Oppodeldoc,” I began to experience _compassion_ for
      the poor fellow. But the “Goosetherumfoodle” showed, if possible,
      less mercy than the “Lollipop.” It was the “Goosetherumfoodle”
      that said:

      “A wretched poetaster, who signs himself ‘Oppodeldoc,’ is silly
      enough to fancy that _we_ will print and _pay for_ a medley of
      incoherent and ungrammatical bombast which he has transmitted to
      us, and which commences with the following most _intelligible_
      line:

      ‘Hail, Holy Light! Offspring of Heaven, first born.’