314 ANECDOTE OF ALVAN STEWART.

rendered difficult, he thus referred to the truth of his prophecy, in the opening of a poetical epistle by the next mail after his arrival at home:

'I AM glad, as it is, that so soon I departed

To this goodly city at once to return;
For immediately after, old BOREAS had started
To scatter the snows from his locks and his urn:
If I'd staid till Monday, or come home on Sunday,
I should have had one day of pleasure, 't is true;
But the steam-boat ceased running, and therefore 'cunning'

I think 't was, my shunning to tarry with you.'

This measure, poor 'OLLAPOD' was wont to say, could be 'run off the reel' faster than any other with which he was acquainted.

THERE is a pleasant anecdote related of Mr. Alvan STEWART, of Central New-York, which strikes us as worthy of preservation. He was dining one day at one of our fashionable hotels; and after selecting from a bill-offare in French a piece of roast-beef, he despatched one of the sparse corps of servants to procure it. He waited for some time, but the servant 'came not back.' At length, observing him assisting at an opposite table, he beckoned to him, and having caught his eye, exclaimed, in a sonorous voice, Young man, I am hungry!' 'Ay, ay, Sir,' replied the waiter, and departed a second time for the plate of beef. After some time had elapsed, the beef was

เ

A 'BORE' IN THE PILLORY.

315

placed before the hungry gentleman, who turned a solemn face to the servant, and asked, 'Are you the boy who took my plate for this beef!' 'Yes, Sir, I be,' said the waiter. 'No!' exclaimed Mr. STEWART: 'why, how grown!'

you have

WHO can withhold his assent to the justice of this estimate of the deserts of that class of persons (happily small) who, having acquired some notoriety as 'conversationists,' are continually striving to be striking or profound; who say things in ten words which require only two; and who fancy all the while that they are making a great impression? It is easy to talk of carniverous animals and beasts of prey; but does such a man, who lays waste a whole party of civilized beings by prosing, reflect upon the joy he spoils and the misery he creates, in the course of his life?—and that any one who listens to him through politeness, would prefer ear-ache or tooth-ache to his conversation? Does he consider the extreme uneasiness which ensues, when the company have discovered that he is a bore, at the same time that it is impossible to convey, by words or manner, the most distant suspicion of the discovery? And then who punishes this bore? What sessions and what assizes for him? What bill is found against him? Who indicts him? When the judges have gone their vernal and autumnal rounds, the sheep-stealer

316

A 'BORE' IN THE PILLORY.

disappears; the swindler gets ready for the Bay; the solid parts of the murderer are preserved in anatomical collections. But after twenty years of crime, the bore is perhaps discovered in the same house; eating the same soup; unpunished, untried, undissected.' Have you not encountered, reader, in the course of what Mrs. GAMP would term your 'pilgian's progess through this mortial wale,' an occasional bore of this stamp; a man whose disquisitions (touching mainly perhaps his own literary opinions and writings, published or unpublished,) beat lettuces, poppysyrup, mandragora, hop-pillows, and the whole tribe of narcotics, all to nothing? If you have not, you are lucky. We know who has.

NUMBER FIFTEEN.

OPENING OF AN ANCIENT VAULT-REFLECTIONS: AN EGG-PERSUADER: AN ACTOR CORNERED': INQUISITIVE PEOPLE: A VERITABLE YANKEE STORY: VICISSITUDES IN GETTING TO YORK': 'IN THE NAME OF THE OCEAN'FIGS!': A SELF-DEPENDENT PHILOSOPHER: A 'STRAWBERRY DITTO': SITTING AND LYING FOR A BUST: THE METROPOLITAN STONE-GAME: THE CHRISTIAN WAY-FARER.

UST after you pass from Broadway into Wall-street,

JUST

citizen reader, you will perceive on your left a wide open space, covered with rubbish and dotted with laborers. Turn aside for a moment and survey the scene. It is a space of ground occupied by two sacred edifices, in succession, the latest of which has just been taken down. The numerous arches which you see around, some almost demolished, and others slowly yielding to the crow-bar and pick-axe, were the vaults of the dead. Advance a few yards and examine them more attentively. The workmen are removing all that remains of the forms that once tenanted them; sometimes so little as scarcely to be perceptible; a spade-full or so of dust, a shapeless lump of porous bone, and perhaps a dank piece of worm-eaten mahogany, being all that is left. In the two or three

318 OPENING OF ΑΝ ANCIENT VAULT.

small pine boxes which you see in the centre of the square are deposited, in a promiscuous heap, the few bones, large and small, which were found commingled together in the vaults; and where the lines of graves ran on each side of the church, are also now and then found similar trophies of the dead and gone.' Pause at this spot, reader—as by an eddy that slowly revolves in the curve of some rushing stream -pause for a moment, and ere you hasten on to mingle with multitudes commercing' in the crowded mart of traffic, solemnly meditate, and commune with yourself: What am I? and whither am I tending? Men with spirits as buoyant and hopes as bright as my own; who once met daily in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis; who mingled with each other in fraternal intercourse; who sat side by side in the same house of prayer; where are they now? 'Shrunk to this little measure!' their very remains commingled together in the dust, and dwindled into indistinctness and inextricable confusion :

Even so!

'AND is it thus!-is human love

So very light and frail a thing!
And must life's brightest visions move
For ever on Time's restless wing?

'Must all the eyes that still are bright,
And all the lips that talk of bliss,
And all the forms so fair to sight,

Hereafter only come to this?'

When the rattling earth is cast upon our