Our young ladies nibble a good name in play,
As for pastime they nibble a biscuit away:

While with shrugs and surmises the toothless old dame,
As she mumbles a crust she will mumble a name.
And as the fell sisters astonished the Scot,
In predicting of Banquo's descendants the lot,
Making shadows of kings, amid flashes of light,
To appear in array and to frown in his sight,

So they conjure up spectres all hideous in hue,
Which, as shades of their neighbours, are pass'd in re-
view.

The wives of our cits of inferior degree
Will soak up repute in a little bohea;
The potion is vulgar, and vulgar the slang

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

And by nods, innuendoes, and hints, and what not,
Reputations and tea send together to pot.
While madam in laces and cambrics array'd,
With her plate and her liveries in splendid parade,
Will drink in imperial a friend at a sup,
Or in gunpowder blow them in dozens all up.
Ah me! how I groan when with full swelling sail
Wafted stately along by the favouring gale,
A China ship proudly arrives in our bay,
Displaying her streamers and blazing away.
Oh! more fell to our port is the cargo she bears
Than grenadoes, torpedoes, or warlike affairs:
Each chest is a bombshell thrown into our town,
To shatter repute and bring character down.

Ye Samquas, ye Chinquas, ye Chonquas, so free, Who discharge on our coasts your cursed quantums of tea,

Oh! think, as ye waft the sad weed from your strand, Of the plagues and vexations ye deal to our land.

As the Upas' dread breath, or the plain where it flies, Empoisons and blasts each green blade that may rise, So, wherever the leaves of your shrub find their way, The social affections soon suffer decay:

Like to Java's drear waste, they embarren the heart, Till the blossoms of love and friendship depart.

Ah, ladies, and was it by Heaven design'd That ye should be merciful, loving, and kind! Did it form you like angels, and send you below To prophecy peace-to bid charity flow! And have you thus left your primeval estate, And wander'd so widely-so strangely of late? Alas! the sad cause I too plainly can seeThese evils have all come upon you through tea! Cursed weed, that can make our fair spirits resign The character mild of their mission divine; That can blot from their bosoms that tenderness true, Which from female to female for ever is due! O! how nice is the texture-how fragile the frame Of that delicate blossom, a female's fair fame! 'Tis the sensitive plant, it recoils from the breath, And shrinks from the touch as if pregnant with death. How often, how often, has innocence sighed, Has beauty been 'reft of its honour-its pride, Has virtue, though pure as an angel of light, Been painted as dark as a demon of night, All offer'd up victims, an auto da fe, At the gloomy cabals-the dark orgies of tea!

If I, in the remnant that's left me of life, Am to suffer the torments of slanderous strife, Let me fall, I implore, in the slang-whanger's claw, Where the evil is open and subject to law; Not nibbled, and mumbled, and put to the rack, By the sly underminings of tea-party clack : Condemn me, ye gods, to a newspaper roasting, But spare me! O spare me a tea-table toasting!

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

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

In the centre then was pitched the tents of the men of battle of the Manhattoes; who, being the inmates of the metropolis, composed the life-guards of the governor. These were commanded by the valiant Stoffel Brinkerhoof, who whilome had acquired such immortal fame at Oyster Bay-they displayed as a standard, a beaver rampant on a field of orange; being the arms of the province, and denoting the persevering industry, and the amphibious origin of the Nederlanders.*

On their right hand might be seen the vassals of that renowned Mynheer Michael Paw,† who lorded it over the fair regions of ancient Pavonia, and the lands away

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

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

south, even unto the Navesink mountains,* and was moreover patroon of Gibbet-Island. His standard was borne by his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of a huge oyster recumbent upon a sea green field; being the armorial bearings of his favourite metropolis, Communipaw. He brought to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each clad in ten pair of linsey woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by broad brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hat-bands. These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of Pavonia ; being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled to have sprung from oysters.

At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came from the neighbourhood of Hell-Gate. These were commanded by the Suy Dams, and the Van Dams, incontinent hard swearers as their names betoken-they were terrible looking fellows, clad in broadskirted gaberdines, of that curious coloured cloth called thunder and lightning; and bore as a standard three Devil's-darning-needles, vocant, in a flame coloured field.

Hard by was the tent of the men of battle from the marshy borders of the Wael-bogtig,† and the country thereabouts-these were of a sour aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, which abound in these parts: they were the first institutors of that honourable order of knighthood, called Fly market shirks; and if tradition speak true, did likewise introduce the far famed step in dancing, called "double trouble." They were commanded by the fearless Jacobus Varra Vanger, and had, moreover, a jolly band of Breukelent ferrymen, who performed a brave concerto on conchshells.

But I refrain from pursuing this minute description,

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

ti. e. The Winding Bay, named from the winding of its shores. This has since been corrupted by the vulgar into the Wallabout, and is the basin which shelters our infant navy.

+ Now spelt Brooklyn.

which goes on to describe the warriors of Bloemen-dael, and Wee-hawk, and Hoboken, and sundry other places, well known in history and song-for now does the sound of martial music alarm the people of New Amsterdam, sounding afar from beyond the walls of the city. But this alarm was in a little time relieved, for lo, from the midst of a vast cloud of dust, they recognised the brimstone coloured breeches, and splendid silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant glaring in the sunbeams; and beheld him approaching at the head of a formidable army, which he had mustered along the banks of the Hudson. And here the excellent but anonymous writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a brave but glorious description of the forces, as they defiled through the principal gate of the city that stood by the head of Wall-street.

First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit the pleasant borders of the Bronx. These were short fat men, wearing exceeding large trunk breeches, and are renowned for feats of the trencher: they were the first inventors of suppawn or mush and milk.-Close in their rear marched the Van Vlotans, of Kaats Kill, most horrible quaffers of new cyder, and arrant braggarts in their liquor.-After them came the Van Pelts, of Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen, mounted upon goodly switch-tailed steeds of the Esopus breed: these were mighty hunters of minks and musk rats, whence came the word Peltry.-Then the Van Nests of Kinderhoek, valiant robbers of birds' nests, as their name denotes to these, if the report may be believed, are we indebted for the invention of slap-jacks, or buckwheat cakes. Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's Creek: these came armed with ferules and birchen rods, being a race of schoolmasters, who first discovered the marvellous sympathy between the seat of honour and the seat of intellect, and that the shortest way to get knowledge into the head was to hammer it into the bottom. Then the Van Grolls of Anthony's Nose, who carried their liquor in fair round little pottles, by reason they could not bouse it out of their canteens, having such rare long noses.-Then the Gardeniers, of Hud