ROXALANA, (I am about to relate a story of real life, and am not allowed to be more personal,)— is a young and handsome widow, my next door neighbour, to whom her husband, dying two years ago, left money enough to console any one, if widows could be consoled under such afflictions. The following story I have from her own lips, and may answer for its truth-but indeed, gentle reader, if you knew to what excess she is beautiful, you would be glad to have any thing from her lips, even if it were a lie. She is just completing her twentieth year, is gay, affable, affectionate and a little mischievous, with a mind already whetted by books and good society to a sharp intelligence and wit, and is altogether one of the most affectionate ladies of which Walnut Street, Philadelphia, has any example-and a bright star it is that can sparkle in so brilliant a firmament.

She has a cousin in New York, to whom she pays occasional visits, travelling often in boats and rail-cars unattended, which in these days of steam, when whole communities are passing and repassing continually, is, she believes, not transgressing the rules of feminine propriety. I assent to this opinion, and think that female modesty, when it chooses to venture into public, does not need a Prætorian cohort for its protectionthat generally it is safe enough, unless the garrison be corrupt, under its natural defences-Widowhood, moreover, is a woman's only chance of a little self-government. Her parents first claim her obedience, then her brothers, who, not knowing how to conduct themselves, are of course very nice about the conduct of their sisters to say nothing of the husbands. I am then for giving a widow the keys of the field, and leaving to the only independent condition of the sex its rightful immunities.

Autumn has retired with his sober sunsets, and winter has usurped the tyranny of Broadway, inviting the Loves and Pleasures to his glittering court. Sleighs course up and down with jingling bells, and school-boys, instinct with new life, fill up the streets and avenues-their loud whoop falling like the voice of one's childhood upon the ear; and over her tea the New York girl sits and gossips, or flutters to an air of Rosini, or graces the front boxes of the Park or National. Mixed up with these gaieties of the elegant Metropolis, you will please imagine our princess Roxalana,upon the fashionable promenade, super-eminent, as Diana among the nymphs, the young hearts gathering about her, beating brisker, (Lady's charms

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and a dowry, what hearts, alas, can resist?) the Peruvian gem sparkles upon her bosom, and from her broad shoulders the shawl hangs gracefully, that had fed upon the pastures of Cashmere; the ermine too has lent her its furs, and the bird of Paradise its plumes, and about her graceful limbs the multicaulis falls as if by instinct in becoming folds, varying its hues,

-"as the orient beam

Varies the neck of Cytherea's doves,"

or under summons of the bell, slowly, she walks with prayer-book to Grace Church; or at the side of her gallant cavalier, and glowing in beauty, the runnie, chiming its tinkling music to the hoar frosts, scuds along the hills of the Weehaw. kin, and looks out, warm-wrapped in a buffalo, upon the wide and wintry desolation of snow, or in a blaze of chandeliers, daintily bedecked, flutters in the quadrille, languishes in the waltz, and round and round turns with the merry throng, till peeping through the eastern windows daylight sends her pale and trembling to her pillow.

How far widows in the brisk blood of youth may rightly indulge in such scenes of merriment, it is not my province to decide. I am but the historian, and confine myself to a simple record of facts, without commendation or blame. It is certain, indeed, that the domestic affections wither and die away, if not nourished by the social, which is one of nature's wise provisions for the promotion of a more diffusive benevolence, and the discouragement of the selfish passions. It is certain too that amusement is among the wants of human beings, and must be supplied like the rest, and moreover that occasional recreation of the mind does not lessen the love and devotion, which in our moments of serious reflection, we owe to those, living or dead, who have been dear to our affections. It is enough, I believe, that our pleasures be not immoral or excessive. In this I can answer for the lady Roxalana. For what virtue has she neglected? She attends her church duties, gives alms to the poor, reads the Lady's Book, is a very Clotho at spinning, and Arachné is no match for her at tapestry, or Pallas at embroidery.

But a much more delicate inquiry occurs here. Can a lady, whose first loves have been unhappy, love again; or ought she to throw herself into the opportunities of loving or of being loved a second time, and employ all the potent witcheries of her sex for this very purpose? I attest the queens of Caria and of Carthage, both of whom died of

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their second loves. Thee, fair Artimesia, pattern of ancient fidelity! thou didst build upon thy deceased lord a tomb to be reckoned with the "Seven Wonders," and even drink, in the appetite of thy intemperate loving, his triturated bones-then fall in love with a young gentleman of Abydos;and thee, hapless Dido,-Didst thou not, before the Mayor of Carthage, swear-Him whom thou lovedst on earth to adore in the grave, imprecating Jove's thunder as the penalty of violated faith, yet a very woman, though a queen, the next day, the very next day! . . . . . On these two witnesses alone I give judgment for the plaintiff.

Why, moreover, does Time bind up the broken heart, and pour his healing balm upon the wound, but that he is commissioned for this office by the benevolence of nature. Love then again-again! -what care the buried ashes? And forget not above all that the torrent rolls onwards; that the leaden god intent upon his horoscopy notes down the truant years, the fluttering moments; that at Saturn's court there are no writs of bankruptcy, no stay-laws, no repudiation; and that the very worst sin chargeable to a lady's indiscretion is to pass forty. It is the voice of nature to be happy-it is duty, it is religion, your hearts being green to be happy. If it is a sin-alas, I know not why the tear trickles upon my cheek, and the inarticulate word dies upon my tongue-if a sin-dear ladies, I reprove it with a sigh!

Thus the winter has turned round, and the sweet sun again, peeping as a church through Brooklyn's roofs and spires, announces the spring, the buds are bursting their husks, and swallows repairing their nests under the eaves of the old Trinity. Every one leaves town in this season, instinctively, as the bees their hives. So Roxalana, satiated with the New York gaieties, meditated a return to her sober household gods of Walnut Street. Her very dwelling, which had stood desolate through the bleak winter, now with doors and windows open, seemed joyously to hail the approach of its beautiful mistress; the drooping spirits too of her longing friends revived. She is the queen-bee, and absent, the hive dies. The number of birds caught in her toils, with the loss of more or less of their feathers, I omit to notice; one only excepted, who is to accompany us through the residue of this story. Suffice it to say, none were wounded mortally. Indeed I have heard that no instance of a New-Yorker being so affected is upon record. Their mode, transmitted from their Amsterdamic progenitors, is to put themselves, as in other cases of inflammation, on spare diet; which I take to be the very best receipt in desperate cases. Our Philadelphia way of blowing the brains out leaves no chance of repentance.

The youth, above alluded to, now demands our attention. He was baptized Theodosius- I was going to add his cognomen, but relating, as I have already said, a story of real life, it would be a violation of the private sanctities to make a more

explicit revelation. Posterity (if we have any) will give me credit, with Mrs. Trollope, Boz, and other Englishmen, for this delicacy. I will only observe that his mother's name was Mrs. Goslin, of the well known house of Goslin & Co., Wall Street; that hunting about for a christian name for her only son, and son of her only husband, she stumbled on Theodosius, and since his years of discretion, he has been regularly printed Theodosius Goslin, Esq. in the New York directories.

Theodosius grew up under the care of his mother, having lost his father when an infantthe very way the lives of great men begin in Plutarch, greatly creditable to the mothers. He had Hyacinthine locks, eyes of a soft emerald blue, and the nurse (a very pretty girl) was stopped continually by gentlemen on the street and asked "whose dear little baby that was?-If it was hers?-and who was its papa?" and twenty such curious interrogatories. He weighed at his birth twenty pounds, no ounces and two pennyweights, troy. Achilles was rocked in a shield to make him warlike, which Mrs. Goslin having read, always wrapped Theodosius up in a lady's shawl to make him gallant. He could before the end of his twelfth month, conjugate a verb in the first person, indicative mood (Dosy sleepy, Dosy hungry-the verb being understood,) and began to wear trousers at two, an epoch afterwards commemorated in the family by an annual dinner. In his tender years great care was taken not to control him in any thing; this gave him great spirit.

"Mothe-r! nurse wont let me stick pins in

her!"

"Ai'nt you ashamed of yourself, Helen-Poor little dear! let me kiss him."

He wanted to spit in the frying pan, the flitters sputtering so temptingly in the fat, and the cook, ill-natured thing! was turned away for hindering him.

In the intervals of repasts he was coaxed with seducing petit patés to eat, and at meal-times he always dined himself into a little spheroid. This developed early his bump of alimentiveness. One of the trying (crying?) situations in the life of American children is taking medicine.

He was now to be educated; and not to spoil his temper, or make a toil of what nature, according to Mrs. Goslin, designed to be a pleasure, she provided him with sets of A B C's in gingerbread, and so had him initiated into the ele. ments (or aliments as his Irish mistress pronounced them) after the system of the renowned Martinus Scriblerus. For classical history he had a small " Rape of Helen" in molasses candy, and a little sugar Siege of Troy," and for biblical, the "Plagues of Egypt," en grenouilles à la, and the "General Deluge," in a soupe a la julienne, and other like facilities. At eight years she thought it advisable to consult him on the choice of a profession.-"What will you be, deary?" she said, and to her delight he replied,

"A lawyer." Both Clay and Webster were lawyers, said Mrs. Goslin to herself, and she smiled in the presentiment of her son's future greatness. Then she stepped round to the principal of the Academy, to whom she had just sent a fat turkey, a Christmas present, to have his opinion.

"Capital talents, Madam-any thing, Law, Medicine, or Divinity. But, between you and me the true bent of his mind is the law. If there is any one thing which Theodosius is better at than another it is the law. He is so fond of argument." Mrs. Goslin felt like the mother of the Gracchi. He was very fond too of pies, but it never occurred to Mrs. Goslin that he should be brought up to pastry. Then the Master cited an example of his argumentative powers, which settled definitely the question of his legal abilities. "Sir," said he to me the other day, "reading 'Neal's Sketches,' here is the notice of a negro so black that charcoal made a white mark on him. Might not a thing then be so black-so very black, that this stove along side of it would be white? Therefore black is white." Then the mother cited another example at a much tenderer age. "Yes, indeed, he was always for having a reason for every thing. When he was quite a baby, at three years of age-not quite three- one day I happened to say, 'what makes the wind blow so?' 'Because him's so fat,' the little creature replied." So the law was his destination, not indeed as a profession, but just to fit him for Congress or the like; for thanks to fortune and the deceased Mr. Goslin, he had no need to meddle with business for a livelihood.

During Mr. Goslin's youth and approach towards manhood, events no doubt occurred of great moment, which for want of space I omit. I will merely state that Mr. Goslin grew up in the usual way, to be a fine-looking fellow; made his European tour; was admired at Tortoni's, Tattersal's, Crockford's; sported a cab and tiger on Regent Street; was seen of a summer afternoon at the side of my lady Blessington (Bless her!) in the parade upon Hyde Park; has made the usual capital out of her ladyship, and talks yet of countesses as familiarly as did ever Caligula of the moon; that he has attained quite an historical celebrity on Broadway-in plain English, that he is now one of the very bloods of Goshen.

A predominant beauty such as Roxalana was not likely to escape his observation. He saw her on the street, traced her home, met her at Mrs. Van Trotter's route, was introduced, and danced with her. Hearts to palpitate, tender glances to be interchanged, sighs to breathe, and be answered by other sighs from his belle-did not require of Mr. Goslin more than a single meeting. He was not a man to sail round and round about a lady, like a Captain Ross about the pole a whole winter only to kiss her little finger towards spring. He made at least three-fourths of the declaration in his first quadrille, which Rox for

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want of time, perhaps inclination, took in good part; she even added a smile or two to her affability; or it was perhaps from kindness, as we see tender-hearted persons, having inadvertently wounded a weaker animal mortally, not to keep it lingering, kill it right off; or it was because women, as military men, feel in them a spirit of conquest, and she merely wished to add Mr. Goslin to the number of her victories. Of her motives history has been silent, and I imitate her prudent example. Whatever the cause, it is certain that it enhanced exceedingly the lady's charms, gave new fire and expression to her eyes, and she glowed in colours so loving and voluptuous, that the Cyprian queen herself would have been jealous this night of her beauty. She looked, as Mr. Goslin thought, with unutterable tenderness on him; a tear even would sometimes start in her eye. He was moved, he was sorry, he was delighted, he was-brief, he was in love. Not, indeed, on his own account so much as the lady's. He had great good nature mixed up in the composition of his mind, and he could not bear to see a young and beautiful creature (and rich!) fall a victim of unrequited affection. Every man has love in him, awaiting only the occasion of development-the spark remains forever in the flint, if not struck out by collision. Mr. Goslin had seen many women, foreign and native; he had seen that prettiest of the three graces Mrs. Norton, and Penelope Smith, from an Irish spinster, princess of Capua; and at home, Miss and Miss and two or three other irresistible misses, yet loved himself only. But his time was come. A merry fellow at Plato's supper, (whom Mr. Goslin thought of but could not recollect the chapter or verse,) says, that man was first produced double-two faces-two sets of limbs-every thing double; that his mode of travelling was by a kind of rotatory movement like the spokes of an omnibus; that he grew proud of his duplicate powers, and insupportable, and Jupiter at last split him into man and woman, (with at the same time an admonition that if not less insolent he would split him again and send him hopping through the world on one leg;) and of this androgynous composition that one half went wandering about the world in perpetual desire of the other till they met in matrimony--a rare occurrence, for one man taking a half not appertaining to him, and another being thrown into the same necessity, all was in confusion. Mr. Goslin was persuaded that he had met his congenial other half in Roxalana.

The city lights were out; a glimmering lamp only seen here and there casting its faint gleams through a dark and solitary alley. The stars shone dimly, and Dian was not bigger than a lady's comb--reflecting her serene rays upon the black walls and slimy carpet of the streets. The graceful trees of the Park, as Mr. Goslin passed, assumed gradually a shape through the gray tints of morning, and seemed as if painted upon the

opal sky. A walk in mute meditation through Broadway at this hour is poetic-is almost sublime. The unquiet city was at rest-its rest yet a little troubled--at last still; as a cross child, that has cried itself asleep, sobs now and then, fetches a deep sigh, and finally is lulled. The fashionable circle was broken, and the last coach winding its way was heard rumbling in the distance, and a few other noises struggling, as it were, through the fogs, fell upon the ear, as indistinct sights upon the vision. A dim and deprecating knock was occasionally heard, of a truant son or henpecked husband, and here and there a cat that had spent the night out in dissipation, was scrambling in at the cellar windows.

Alas, nor silent stars, nor flickering hydrogen, nor trees of the Park, nor hen-pecked husband, nor scrambling cats entered the perturbed apprehension of Theodosius Goslin. Nor went he to his home straightway, but through the wide eity, wandered about distractedly; as the wounded deer, which the unwary Indian has pierced, wanders the long day, nor lays itself down at night, in the vast forests of the Oregon, inconsolably, and the deadly arrow cleaves to its side. At length however, he reached his domicile, and putting his whiskers en papillotte, and shutting out the obtru-sive sun with his window curtains, crept into bed.

But the widow trotted in his brain incontinently, and defeated all his efforts at sleeping. He turned now on this side, now on that, and now thought of distant waterfalls, of waving pines, of the monotonous rain-drop, that falls, drop! drop! from the dripping eaves, and finally of a flock of sheep jumping one after another over a rail-fence --all to no purpose-till the queen of love in pity despatched Somnus from his Cimmerian cave, who fluttering to Mr. Goslin's chamber, stood over his pillow, and steeping his temples in poppies and juice of the dandelion, sealed up his eyes in a quiet and balmy sleep.

Roxalana too in another part of the city, bedewed in Lethean slumbers, reposed quietly, and she wore a little blue night-cap with a white fringe. Gracious spirits! who watch upon sleeping widows, preserve, I entreat you, the sweet Roxalana; hover over her to inspire her kind and genial dreams, and drive far from her couch the malign influences which under shape of nightmares and other phantasms, disturb mortal senses, that she may rise up refreshed and invigorated for the great events of to-morrow-events which come now to be narrated. Happy Livy and Herodotus! whose pretty accomplishment of jokeages have so recommended your narratives to the world. Why, Nature, who has bestowed sweet and ravishing discourse upon so many, has she made me mute and ineloquent, and unable to transfuse into others' bosoms what so charms my own!

At eleven o'clock, precisely, ante meridian, Mr. Goslin was seen to stir one leg. I know not why it is, but persons intent on a journey

awake as if instinctively just at the premeditated hour. The vision of travelling next day, and the necessity of rising at eleven, and setting out at two, of being in the same boat and car with Roxalana, of seeing her, hearing her, and being admired by her, had slept quietly in a secret cabin of his brain for the six previous hours. It was Mr. Goslin's morning sleep, which by the kindness of nature, creeps so agreeably upon the human senses. A small gallipot of essences, which stood on the chimney, bright in the rays of Phobus that poured through the lattice, (nor was it a dream, for Mr. Goslin saw it with his open eyes, and heard its voice distinctly with his own ears) -by degrees seemed to move and become animated; at length it stretched out its little arms and poured out these words;-" Theodosius! canst thou sleep in this emergency?--Roxalana goes at two. Presently you will see the steamboat alive with travellers and trunks and bandboxes, as a flowery field of Wyoming with bees, or a sugar-house with ants, and presently the boat bell dinning the hour with its noisy tintinabulations. Awake! arise!".... And the vision vanished into thin air.

In New York a patch of withered sod as large as Dido would have covered with a bull's hide is called "The Park." (It insists on the definite article.) Two or three scraggy elms stand drooping their shrivelled branches imploringly, upon which labels are posted up with admonishments not to injure the shrubbery. Strangers arriving here about the end of August, when the caterpillars (ignorant of the Park laws) have consumed the last leaf, take this prohibition to be ironical, and the name itself facetious. They are mistaken; the New Yorkers do ingenuously believe they have done wonders in thus sacrificing two acres of the western continent to the public pleasures; which might have been let out on a ground-rent--perhaps a hundred dollars a foot.

The dwellings overlooking this Prado of the New Yorquois-this Tuilleries of the Astor House, are costly and fashionable, and that in which sleeps Mr. Goslin is of an elegance the most recherché. His sleeping apartment especially, is draped with most exquisite grace, and enlivened by appropriate pictures. Venus and her doves are looking down from the ceiling,--by an artist expressly from Italy; the screen has a Cupid and arrows, emblematie of kindling a fire. His bed is of the or-moulu and couch of the eider down, and the curtains, to match a ruddy complexion, are of gray, and the other furniture of a suitable hue; luxurious ottomans are set in front of broad mirrors, upon which a gentleman may lie in relief, and brought out on all his points. In a word it would be difficult to find any thing in the New World, altogether so magnificent as the bed chamber of Mr. Goslin-which will mitigate somewhat the indelicacy of admitting the fair readers of the Lady's Book to "assist" at this gentleman's leveé.

At twelve Mr. Goslin disclosed his eyes with sundry blinkings, and stared upon the heaven of his bed curtains, and reflecting awhile sorrowfully upon the horrible unfashionable hours of steam engines, his lids gradually closed again for half an hour, when the thought of the boat retwitched him by the ear. Oh leave me, importunate queen of love, he muttered in a half whisper. Why comest thou to tempt me from my dear, soothing, fascinating slumbers. But the twiches were only the more frequent, and at half past twelve precisely, Mr. Goslin was seen to put out one leg, which in the usual manner hung dangling towards the floor, and after a reasonable time the other, and finally with a resolute struggle to set himself upon the bed-side. Having reposed awhile in this sedentary posture, and stretched and yawned twice or thrice, he was seen, after observing the clock, to walk in a hurried manner across the floor and seizing the bell-string, to ring violently; when a valet, as Aladdin's genius by the rubbing of the enchanted lamp, was before him. And now a consultation followed upon the morning dress. "-been thinking, Tom,- (Yaw-e-yaw!) thinking-I should look-(yaw-w-w) best this morning in a redingotte of-(yaw!) blue."

"And white pants, your honour, contrasted with a black vest and coloured cravat."

(Opens the curtains,) "Why fellow, the weather is hazy."

"True, did not observe. You must wear your polonaise, invisible, with black trowsers and white satin vest."

(The toilet in preparation.) In the mean time you are to imagine Mr. Goslin at his table, in a magnificent robe de chambre, damask, in green emerald ground. He has looked over his invitations for the day; he has written a billet doux, and enfolded it in a cover scented and embroidered, and reflects-in doubt whether he shall direct to Miss Tripp? Miss Bunn? Miss Bonnell? or-at length he decides, takes his pen and writes"To Miss Julia Cynlagea,"'--an affair settled. Then opens, and reperuses. "Just arrivedSaratoga in town-dying to see you- I fly, dearest, on the wings of love - inform me where you live Miss Julia, &c. Present. (The toilet is now in process) 66 That left eyebrow a little darker - that moustache on the left-It must curl a leetle upwards, the other as much downwards Don't conceive why widows are more dangerous than maids-those gloveslet me examine them-they are not calm enough for a hazy day-a little more subdued-Miss Jourdan - do indeed poor Sall!-pity hercan't marry them all!--What snowy tints; they are Mrs. Frederick's doings; only look at them! is innocence whiter? and the corsets are Baudry's, Rue Richelieu, sign of "the Guardian Angel." What adaptation to the human shapes! Not a ripple.

but

-

"Many a man's skin don't fit half so nicely."

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Stultz in coats is supereminent-never have the air of being quite new- - the reason, I think, is that a maid's sense of propriety keeps persons at a distance, while a widow admits one to the more immediate vicinity of her acquaintance - Mr. Bulwer thinks more mischief is in the vest. Perhaps true, it contains the heart, as he observes, and has often the heart's dearest affections interwoven in its embroidery. Anderson had a proper sense of trowsers-these are his façon. "An artist," said he to Lord D.-a gentleman of unusual delicacy, who apologized for never paying his bills" who has a right sense of his profession is above mercenary and temporary views of recompense. His recompense is fame-the name that lives after him. You understand? Yes, that is to say, he makes breeches for posterity. It brings custom to the shop, Tom, so that to make gentlemen's trowsers is its own recompense. Do you see?"

"To be sure. The breeches of the nobility, you mean, are always paid for by the commons."

The boots next were commented on, from Bentley's, and the hat from Jupp's. The little finger now sparkled with the diamond, the gold snuffbox reposed upon the palm of the hand, and in full panoply Mr. Goslin stood at the glass-a long time stood in uno obtutu. A bright smile at length lighted up his handsome countenance. He was thinking of the happy woman who would one day be Mrs. Goslin.

Tom had been valet to the "fastest" gentlemen of London-to the elegant Mr. M'Kesly, Beau Renolds, so chaste in colours, and Lord Baltimore, so clever both in dress and equipage, and to that Proteus of the toilet, the exquisite Count d'Orsay. He had dressed Mr. Sutton, Mr. Jones, Mr. Finsbury, so exact in the harmonies, Lord Cunningham, ditto, and Mr. Clagget, tasty in dress as inimitable in horses; and finally my Lord Jersey, who has given his name to the sportsman's spurs and hat, and the Duke of Leeds, close upon his heels, and the Duke of Dorsett, Col. Lea, and Sir Charles Knightly; and rich with this English experience, which he exerted to the uttermost on this occasion, he turned out Mr. Goslin, as a Jupiter from the hands of Phidias, to the admiration of Broadway. Pity, the style was somewhat above what our inelegant cisatlantics can yet appreciate or conceive.

The widow's fondness and intended journey, were whispered by Goslin's friends, and the envied slander ran about town, slander with her million of mouths, timid at first, impudent at last, grovelling in the mire, and revelling in the skies, perching at midday upon the church spire, told, "that Roxalana, her other wooers slighted and jilted, loved at first sight Theodosius, and careless of her lady reputation, had chosen him, a stranger, partner of her journey to-morrow." Then on pernicious wings, fluttering to Rox's chamber, whispered in her ear the naughty calumny, and went out to tea at Mrs. Goslin's, in the very act of tak