Transcriber's Note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. Some changes of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are listed at the end of the text.

ANNALS OF QUODLIBET.

EDITED BY

THE AUTHOR OF "SWALLOW BARN," ETC. ETC.

[QUODLIBET:]

CONTAINING

SOME ANNALS THEREOF,

WITH AN

AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE BOROUGH,
AND THE SAYINGS AND DOINGS OF SUNDRY OF THE TOWNSPEOPLE;
INTERSPERSED WITH SKETCHES OF THE MOST
REMARKABLE AND DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS
OF THAT PLACE AND ITS VICINITY.

BY SOLOMON SECONDTHOUGHTS,
SCHOOLMASTER,

FROM ORIGINAL MSS. INDITED BY HIM, AND NOW MADE PUBLIC AT THE REQUEST AND
UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF THE GREAT NEW-LIGHT DEMOCRATIC
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF QUODLIBET.

Maxima de nihilo nascitur historia.—Propertius.

SECOND EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
1860.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

[A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR.]

These annals were first published in 1840. They reappear after an interval of twenty years. In that interval the old questions which inflamed the zeal and sharpened the wit of parties have totally disappeared from the political field: the parties themselves have fermented into new compounds, and lost all cognizable identity. Old warriors, who dealt mortal blows on each other's sconce, have sunk to sleep in the same truckle bed, and have waked up in mutual surprise to find themselves in each other's arms, with a new flag above them, and new and unaccustomed voices giving the word of command.

The youth who have grown up to manhood in the mean time, and have come to be conspicuous in the conduct of public affairs, compose a distinct generation, as unconscious of the events, the interests, and sentiments of twenty years ago as of those of remote antiquity. These not only reject the traditions and teachings of the past, but repudiate and ignore the whole scheme of social and political opinion of the men who have gone before them, disdaining to adopt their maxims of government, their policy, their forbearance, their toleration, or their affections. They inaugurate a new era of new principles, new purposes, new powers, new morals, and, alas! of new hatreds.

May it not serve a good turn toward arresting this torrent of innovation, to present to the leisure meditation of those who are embarking upon its stream, a few memorials of a bygone day, quite as distinguished as the present for the intensity of its political ardors and the absurdity of its excesses, but, fortunately, more harmless and amiable in its temper? Is it not worth while to attempt, by these playful sketches of the past, to lure the angry combatants into a smile, and, by showing them the grotesque retribution which history inflicts upon distempered parties after a few decades of oblivion, to beguile them into some consideration of the predicament in which they may leave their own renown? May not all sober-minded lovers of their country contemplate with some profit the morale of a picture—even as light and extravagant as this—which represents the engrossments of parties who fancied that the destinies of a great nation hung upon the plots and counterplots of their busy ferment,—which engrossments, with all their concomitant gravities and glorifications, twenty years have shriveled into the dimensions of a pleasant farce—a little stage imbroglio of comic conceits and fussy nothings?

That intrepidity of absurdity which no responsible individual would dare to countenance in his own conduct, and which is only possible to organized bodies propelled by the ardor of party enthusiasm, is a fact in human action worth the study of the philosopher. By some unexplored tidal law, parties would seem to move through successive ebb and flow toward a final culmination of mischievous extreme, each refluent wave returning with heavier mass, until the accumulated weight of madness and folly overtopples, breaks, and dissolves in noisy foam. As we have a computed cycle of a money-crisis, the known result of an increasing and rapid prosperity ill used, so also we have the regularly recurring political crisis, the result of increasing party-power abused by rash and insolent presumption upon its strength.

This century has run out its three periods of twenty years. The first ended in the total absorption of all differences of opinion, bringing a stagnant calm upon the waters of ancient strife. The second culminated in a revolution that shook a great party out of its seat;—a revolution which these annals were designed to illustrate. The third period has wheeled through its course, to work another downfall and another revolution more notable and significant than either that have gone before. The fourth, let us hope, may find a nation restored to reason;—a great united Republic, tried and purified by the experience of dangers incurred and surmounted, and by an awakened patriotism successfully asserting the predominance of the good sense and virtue of the people over the factious spirit that ministers to personal ambition, and the vanity that seeks renown in innovations upon either the principles in which the Union was formed, or the sentiment by which it is to be preserved.

But these reflections are tending toward a graver subject than it would be becoming to discuss here. So, I leave them for some more appropriate occasion. If I have any reason to fear the annals of Quodlibet may find no favor with the emerging generation, I can make sure of another class of readers to whom I look with a staunch and unfaltering trust;—that goodly host of ripe and considerate citizens, the survivors of 1840—that salt of the earth, who live on the past, and reckon old memories to be better than a fresh and damp morning journal. To you, old friends, bald on the crown, gray and feathery about the temples, with jovial glance of the eye, showing a heart made kind by trials, and who love your country with an affection that grows out of the straits in which you have seen her, and the faith you have that Providence has helped her through them, and will help her through many more: to you, seasoned and made jocund by time, and who, both as supporters and antagonists, have run through the career of passion and delusion, and outlived the wrath, the cunning, and the falsehood, the grandiloquent fervor and exaggerated importance of the old political quarrels; to you I dedicate this new edition of this book and consign it to your protection, with the affectionate trust of a fellow-soldier, (whether as comrade or opponent,—as kindly in one character as the other,) in the whilom war of bloodless campaigns, in which for years we were mutually engaged.

The astute reader of these annals, if he but truly analyze their philosophy, may obtain a revelation more or less intelligible of what is acting on the stage to-day, and even arrive at some data by which he may cast a horoscope of the time to come. History is constantly reproducing itself. Events have different dates, and run in different names; but motives, human action and passion, are the same, and bring to light the same categories of thought and opinion. That which has been, is, and will be again, through an infinite series of repetitions. Thus we read the present and the future in the past. And in this light I affirm the annals to be a fair and veritable history of this time. Change a few secondary particulars, and the reader will find 1840 a type of 1860.

Would that in these grotesque absurdities of the busy world of twenty years ago the men who shape and control the political issues of this day may see some reflected images of themselves, and thus find a motive to make interest with posterity for a better report twenty years hence!

[INTRODUCTION.]

Friendly Reader:—

Of a truth, we are a great people!—and most happy am I, Solomon Secondthoughts, Schoolmaster of the Borough of Quodlibet, that it hath fallen to my lot, even in my small way, to make known to you how in our Borough that greatness hath grown toward its perfect maturity—feeling persuaded that Quodlibet therein is but an abstract or miniature portrait of this nation. Happy am I, although sorely oppressed with an inward perception of my defective craft in this most worthy task, that I have been thought by our Central Committee a fit expounder of that history wherein is enchrysalized (if I may be allowed to draw a word, parce detortum, from the Greek mint) the most veritable essence of that recently discovered Democratic theory, for distinction called the Quodlibetarian, which is destined to supplant all other principles in our government, and to render us the most formidable and the most imposing people upon the terraqueous globe.

How it came to pass that this duty has been committed to my hands, you shall learn.

In the days of the late Judge Flam, now thirty years gone by, and long before Quodlibet was, that very considerate and astute gentleman honored me, a poor and youthful scholar, with a promotion to the office of private tutor in his family, then residing at their ancient seat in this neighborhood. It was my especial duty, in this station, to prepare Master Middleton, the eldest born, for college; which in three years of assiduous labor was achieved, much to my content, and, I need not scruple to affirm, no less to my honor, seeing how notably my pupil has since figured in high places among the salt of the nation. Far be it from me to take an undue share of desert for this consummation; it would be disingenuous not to say that my pupil's liberal endowments at the hand of Nature herself rendered my task easy of success.

By the aid of my early patron the Judge, whose memory will long be embalmed in the unction of my gratitude, I became, after Master Middleton was passed from under my care, the head of our district school, which at first was established in that lowly log building under the big chestnut upon the Rumblebottom, about fifty rods south of Christy M'Curdy's mill—which tenement is yet to be seen, although in a melancholy state of desolation, the roof thereof having been blown away in the famous hurricane of August, 1836, just two years and ten months after the Removal of the Deposits. This unfortunate event—I mean the blowing off of the roof—it was the mercy of Providence to delay for the term of one year and a fraction of a month after I had removed into the new academy which my former pupil, and now, in lineal succession to his lamented parent the Judge, my second patron, the Hon. Middleton Flam, had procured to be erected for my better accommodation in the Borough of Quodlibet. Had my removal been delayed, or the hurricane have risen thirteen months sooner than it did, who shall tell what mourning it might not have spread through our country side—who shall venture to say that Quodlibet might not have been to-day without a chronicler?

This long inhabiting of mine in these parts has afforded me all desirable opportunities to note the growth of the region, and especially to mark out the beginnings, the progression, and the sudden magnifying of our Borough; and being a man—I speak it not vaingloriously—of an inquiring turn, and strongly gifted, as our people of Quodlibet are pleased to allow, with the perfection of setting down my thoughts in writing; and having that essential requisite of the historian, an ardent and unquenchable love of my subject, it has ever been my custom to put into my tablets whatsoever I have deemed noteworthy in the events and opinions of my day, accompanied by such reflections thereon as my subject might be found to invite. Some of these memorabilia, with discourses pertinent to the same, have I from time to time, distrustfully and with the proper timidity of authorship, ventured to contribute to our newspaper, and thereby has my secret vanity been regaled by seeing myself in print. By what token I have not yet ascertained, but these lucubrations of mine were not long ago discovered to our "Grand Central Committee of Unflinching New-Light Quodlibetarian Democrats," who have been charged with the arduous duty of maintaining the integrity of the party in the present alarming crisis, and of promoting, by all means in their power, the indefeasible, unquestionable, and perpetual right of succession to the Presidential Chair, claimed by and asserted for the candidate of the great, unterrified New Democratic school of patriotic defenders of the spoils. This Central Committee now hold their sessions weekly in Quodlibet—and having discovered my hand in the lucubrations to which I have alluded above, they have been pleased to express a favorable opinion thereon; and, as a sequence thereto, it has occurred to them to fancy that my poor labors being duly given to the compiling of such a history as my tablets might afford of the rise and progress of the New Democratic principle in Quodlibet, the same would greatly redound to the advantage of the cause in the present great struggle. Acting upon this suggestion, the Grand Central Committee have honored me with a request to throw into such shape as I might deem best these scattered records of opinion and chronicles of fact, whereof I was supposed to have a rich magazine.

Readily and cheerfully have I acceded to this request; and with the more relish, as I shall thus be furnished with an authentic occasion to present to the world the many valuable thoughts and eloquent utterings of my late distinguished pupil, and now beneficent patron, the Hon. Middleton Flam, long a representative of this Borough and the adjacent district in the Congress of the United States.

I pretend to no greater merit in this execution of my task than what an impartial spirit of investigation, a long acquaintance with persons of every degree connected with this history, an apt judgment in discriminating between opinions, a most faithful and abundant memory, a careful store of documentary evidence, an unalterable devotion to the great principles of Quodlibetarian Democracy, and, for the expounding of all, a lucid and felicitous style, may allow me to claim as the chronicler of this Borough.

The better to assure you, my friendly reader, that, in temper and condition, I may demand somewhat of the confidence due to the character of a dispassionate commentator on the times, I would have you understand that I am now on the shady side of sixty, unmarried, and in possession of an easy revenue of four hundred dollars per annum, which is voted to me by our commissioners, for instructing in their rudiments thirty-seven children of both sexes; that I have a plate at the table of my patron, the Hon. Middleton Flam, my former pupil, every Sunday at dinner; and that he, being aware for some time past of my purpose to treasure up his remarkable sayings, has, with a generous freedom, often repeated to me many opinions which otherwise would have been irretrievably lost. Moreover, since I am now brought before the public under circumstances in which reserve on my part would be no better than affectation, I would also advertise my indulgent reader of the fact that I belong to the Quodlibetarian New-Light Club, whereof I some time officiated as Secretary, and which club generally meets on Saturday night at Ferret's; that the members of the same, noting my staidness of deportment and the careful deliberation with which I guard myself in the utterance of any discourse, do frequent honor to the temperance of my judgment by making me the arbiter of such casual controversies as arise therein, touching the true import and application of the principles of our New-Light Democracy; and—if I run no risk of being charged with offering a trivial evidence of the reputation I have earned in the club—I would also mention, that some of our light wags have gone so far—facetiously and with a commendable good nature, knowing that I would not take it ill, as more peevish men might, in their jocular pleasantry—as to call me, in allusion to my natural sedateness, Sober Secondthoughts:—the rogues!

And now, amiable and considerate reader, you have "ab imo pectore" my honest avouch for what I propose to lay before you, and a plain confession of my weaknesses. I come with a clean breast to the confessional. We shall have a frugal banquet of it, but the fruits, I make bold to promise, shall be wholesome and of the best. Now turn we to it in good earnest. If this little chronicle—for my book shall not be overgrown and apoplectic, but rather, as you shall find it, "garrulous and thin"—do not bring you to a profound sense of the value of this Amaranth of Republicanism, the New-Light Quodlibetarian Democracy, then say it to my teeth, there is no virtue in Sober Secondthoughts. Go thy ways—"The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness."

S. S., Schoolmaster.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

PAGE

A Word from the Author [v]

Introduction [ix]

Interlocutors, Actors, etc. [xxi]

CHAPTER I.

Antiquities of Quodlibet. Michael Grant's tanyard destroyed by the canal. Consequences of this event. Two distinguished individuals take up their residence in the Borough. Establishment of the Patriotic Copperplate Bank. Circumstances which led to, and followed that measure. Michael Grant's objections to it. [25]

CHAPTER II.

Great usefulness of the bank. Surprising growth of Quodlibet. Some account of the Hon. Middleton Flam. Origin of his Democracy. His logical argument in favor of the pocketing of the Bill to repeal the Specie Circular. The Democratic principle as developed in the Representative System. [41]

CHAPTER III.

Further discourse relating to the Hon. Middleton Flam. Correction in the orthography of his family seat. His respect for the people. Very original views entertained by him on this subject. His liberality in money matters. Aversion to the law regarding interest. Democratic view of that question. His encouragement of industry and the working people. Ingenious and profound illustration of the Great Democratic Principle [57]

CHAPTER IV.

The Second Era. Population of Quodlibet. Increase unparalleled in Ancient Cities; equaled only by Milwaukee, etc. Success of the bank. Attack upon it in Congress. The Hon. Middleton Flam's triumphant vindication. Sketch of his celebrated speech before the New Lights. Inimitable irony on the Divorce of Government and Bank. Merited compliment to the head of the Secretary of the Treasury. That distinguished gentleman's opinions. [68]

CHAPTER V.

Excitement produced by The Thorough Blue Whole Team. Meeting of the New Lights. Jesse Ferret's ambidexterity. Introduction of Eliphalet Fox to the club. His exposition of principles. Establishment of the Quodlibet Whole Hog. [79]

CHAPTER VI.

Being a short history of Eliphalet Fox. [87]

CHAPTER VII.

Astounding Event; Suspension of Specie Payments. Proceedings of the Bank of Quodlibet thereupon. Resolve of the Directors against Suspension. Conspiracy and threatened Revolution headed by Flan Sucker. Directors change their mind. Their consternation and escape. Remarkable bravery and presence of mind of the Hon. Middleton Flam. His splendid appeal to the insurgents. General Jackson's oracular views in regard to the Suspension. [93]

CHAPTER VIII.

Signs of discord in Quodlibet. The Iron-Railing Controversy. Agamemnon Flag's nomination. Revolt of Theodore Fog. The celebrated Split. Consequences of Jesse Ferret's pernicious dogma in reference to publicans. First fruits of the Split manifested at Mrs. Ferret's tea drinking. Grave reflections by the author. Moral. [106]

CHAPTER IX.

Great meeting at the Sycamore Spring. Some description of the arrangements. Nicodemus Handy chosen to preside on this occasion. Motion to that effect by Mr. Snuffers. This worthy gentleman's misfortune. His escape. Successful organization of the meeting. [118]

CHAPTER X.

Scenes at the Sycamore Spring. Nicodemus Handy's speech as President. Sketch of Andrew Grant's speech. Agamemnon Flag's. Attempts at interruption. Theodore Fog's celebrated speech on this occasion. Eloquent exposition of principles. His triumph. His misfortune. Quipes's disappointment of his friends. [128]

CHAPTER XI.

The division of the party becomes more distinct. Admirable address of Eliphalet Fox at this juncture. Result of the election. Rejoicing of the True Grits. Jesse Ferret's difficulties. Is taken to task by his dame. Candid avowal of his embarrassments. Theodore Fog's exposition of True Grit principles. His good-natured encouragement of Jesse Ferret. Dabbs's treat. [147]

CHAPTER XII.

Third Era. Divisions in Quodlibet continue. Fomented by the women. Fog rather disappoints his friends by his course in the Legislature. Prostration of business in the Borough. Traced to the merchants. Mr. Flam's opinion of them, and the consequence thereof. Indignation of the New Lights against them. Fog's eulogium upon them. Movements of the True Grits. Fox's skillful management. The Tigertail affair. Mysterious termination of it. Nim Porter's indiscretion. [169]

CHAPTER XIII.

A political discussion at Abel Brawn's shop. Abel's views of the Sub-Treasury. Important communication made by Theodore Fog. The New Lights take ground against the banks. The Hon. Middleton Flam resigns the Presidency of the Copperplate Bank. Snuffers aspires to the succession. [181]

CHAPTER XIV.

Letter from a Cabinet officer to Mr. Flam. Directions to the Democracy. The Cabinet officer's mode of producing an impression. The President's determination in regard to the Independent Treasury. Warning to deserters. Candidates for Mr. Flam's place in the bank. Hardbottle elected. Theodore Fog's outbreak. He cools down and stands upon principle. Hardbottle unpopular. [194]

CHAPTER XV.

Unhappy event in the life of Nicodemus Handy. Consternation at Quodlibet. Disasters among the Directors. Explosion of the bank. Conversation between Theodore Fog and Mr. Grant. Fog's views of the question of distress. Compliment to Jesse Ferret. [201]

CHAPTER XVI.

A rapid review of one year. What the author is compelled to pretermit. The President's "Sober Secondthought" message received at Quodlibet with great rejoicing. The author communes with his reader touching New-Light principles. Illustrations of them. Remarkable dexterity of the Secretary. Interesting letter from the Hon. Middleton Flam. Dawning of the Presidential Canvass. The Northern man with Southern principles, and his mannikin. [214]

CHAPTER XVII.

Fourth Era. The Hon. Middleton Flam re-elected. The New Lights determine to stigmatize the Whigs as Federalists. Mr. Flam's instructions in regard to the Presidential Canvass. Nomination of Harrison and Tyler. Course of the New Lights. Formation of the Grand Central Committee of Unflinching New-Light Quodlibetarian Democrats. Its President, Secretary, and place of meeting. [225]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Proceedings of the Grand Central Committee. Vindication of the severity practiced against General Harrison. Tactics of the New Lights. Abolitionism. Selling white men for debt. Harrison a coward. Considerations which led to the naming of the opposition British Whigs. Stratagem against Harrison, and the clamor against him for not answering. Hope of the New Lights confirmed by the Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia elections. Baltimore Convention a failure. Important letter from Mr. Flam. Amos Kendall's purpose to resign. Excitement of composition prescribed by his physician. Central Committee sanction the compilation of these annals. [232]

CHAPTER XIX.

Deserved compliment on Mr. Van Buren's exploit of the Florida War. The affair of the True Grits and Sergeant Trap. True Grits suffer a defeat. Flan Sucker's opinion upon the subject. His account of an action at law between Joe Snare and Ike Swingletree. [242]

CHAPTER XX.

These Chronicles draw to a close. The New Lights not displeased with Eliphalet Fox's discomfiture. Passage of the Independent Treasury Bill, and rejoicing thereon in Quodlibet. Changes. Interesting letter from the Dibble family. Mr. Flam returns to Quodlibet. His views of the Canvass. The President's reliance on the intelligence of the people. Ignominy and Insult of Federalism. Elections in Kentucky, Indiana, and North Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, and Illinois. Presidential election. Consternation of the Quods. Meeting of the Club. Quarrel of Theodore Fog and Hon. Middleton Flam. Defection of Fog and sundry True Grits. Second Split. Great uproar and confusion. [254]

[INTERLOCUTORS, ACTORS, AND OTHERS NOTED IN THIS HISTORY.]

NEW-LIGHT QUODLIBETARIAN DEMOCRATS.

The Hon. Middleton Flam.—Head of the New Lights, Representative of the district in Congress, President of the Copperplate Bank, intimate with the Secretary of the Treasury, an orator, a philosopher, and a man of large estate.

Nicodemus Handy.—Projector of the Copperplate Bank, Cashier of the same, and some time second in command of the New Lights.

Simon Snuffers.—Superintendent of the Hay Scales, and President of the New-Light Club.

Nathaniel Doubleday.—Clerk of the Court and Vice of the Club.

S. S.—Author and Editor of this History, Principal of the District School, honorary member of several literary societies, and Secretary no less to the New-Light Club than to the Grand Central Committee of Unflinching New-Light Quodlibetarian Democrats—quorum magna pars fui.

Agamemnon Flag.—Attorney-at-Law, formerly of Bickerbray. At one time the Regular Nomination Candidate. Disposed to be in love with Miss Handy.

Jacob Barndollar.—Son-in-law of Jesse Ferret—of the firm of Barndollar & Hardbottle, Forwarding and Commission Merchants.

Anthony Hardbottle.—Counterpart in said Firm. Elected President of the bank upon the resignation of Mr. Flam.

Zachary Younghusband.—Postmaster of Quodlibet, Tin-plate worker, and member of the Grand Central Committee.

Theodore Fog.—Attorney-at-Law. At one time Director of the bank, but compelled to resign on account of his habits. Independent candidate against Agamemnon Flag—member of the Legislature—a distinguished popular orator, and original founder of that branch of the New Lights known by the name of the True Grits.

Dr. Thomas G. Winkelman.—Druggist, and soda-water pavilion keeper, physician in ordinary to the True Grits, and a man of great influence in that sect. Coroner of the county, contractor for the supply of medicines to the Almshouse, and ready to take any other office which might be vacant.

Nimrod Porter.—Bar-keeper at The Hero, fond of betting, famous for trotting horses. A True Grit, but well inclined to the Mandarins.

Eliphalet Fox.—Formerly editor of "The Gabwrangle Grimalkin," but, through the influence of Mr. Flam, transferred to "The Quodlibet Whole Hog,"—an expectant of the Marshal's place, but disappointed. The Orderly of the True Grits.

Ferox Tigertail.—Marshal of the district, resident in Bickerbray, an old Federalist, but reformed into a New-Light Democrat: choleric, and difficult to keep in harness.

Washington Cutbush.—His clerk, suspected of having an opinion of his own in politics.

Corney Dust.—His porter, charged with being lukewarm, and attending to nothing but his office.

Virgil Philpot.—Editor of The Bickerbray Scrutinizer, and an out-and-out friend of the Hon. Middleton Flam.

Abram Schoolcraft.—Nurseryman in Bickerbray, member of the Legislature.

Curtius Short.—Cheap store-keeper in Tumbledown, member of the Legislature.

Cale Goodfellow.—Sportsman, Farobanker, etc., of Tumbledown, and entirely devoted to Theodore Fog.

WHIGS.

Michael Grant.—Formerly a tanner, occupying the land on which Quodlibet was built. Having amassed an independence, he has retired to his farm at the foot of the Hogback, where he lives, surrounded by his four sons.

Andrew Grant.—His youngest son, educated to the engineer service, but preferring to be at home, married the daughter of Stephen P. Crabstock, and lives near the Hogback.

Abel Brawn.—A substantial blacksmith, but unfortunately infected with Whig principles—a matter of great regret to his friends among the New Lights.

Davy Post.—Wheelwright.

Geoffry Wheeler.—Teamster.

Peter Ounce.—Keeper of the Boatmen's Hotel, on the Canal.

Stephen P. Crabstock.—Iron-master, and proprietor of the Hogback Furnace—a man who in spite of his adherence to the dangerous doctrines of the Whigs, has arisen from poverty to wealth by his own exertions.

Augustus Postlethwaite Tompkinson.—Editor of The Thorough Blue Whole Team—a paper characterized by its mendacity, its ferocity, and utter disregard of the feelings of the purest New Lights in the nation. A bitter enemy of the Hon. Middleton Flam, and having the audacity to speak lightly of the President of the United States.

John Smith.—A gentleman generally known throughout the Union, and several times run for Congress.

OF DOUBTFUL POLITICS.

Jesse Ferret.—Inn-keeper and proprietor of The Hero—a cautious man, and somewhat afraid of his wife.

Sam Hardesty.—Carpenter, so much under the weather as to have had no time to make up his mind, notwithstanding Mr. Flam's generosity toward him.

Quipes.—House and sign, plain and ornamental painter, glazier, and artist in the portrait and landscape line.

Nicholas Hardup.—Cattle dealer, a borrower of money from Mr. Flam, and, strange to tell, not yet satisfactorily settled in his opinions.

Isaiah Crape.—Undertaker and conductor of funerals—Cabinet and furnishing store-keeper.

Sergeant Trap.—On the recruiting service at Quodlibet.

His Drummer.—A short and ferocious martialist.

Charley Moggs.—Boss loafer of Bickerbray, and promoted in the army as Sergeant Trap's fifer.

WOMEN.

Mrs. Middleton Flam.—Lady of our member, and mother of a large family.

Miss Janet Flam.—Sister of Mr. Middleton.

Mademoiselle Jonquille.—French Governess to the Misses Flam.

Polly Ferret.—Commander-in-chief of all the forces of The Hero.

Susan Barndollar.—Her daughter, wife of Barndollar & Hardbottle, and remarkable for having her own opinion.

Mrs. Younghusband.—The Postmaster's lady.

Mrs. Snuffers.—Lady of the Superintendent of the Hay Scales, a woman of great consideration in the Borough.

Hester Hardbottle.—Maiden sister to Anthony Hardbottle.

Mrs. Handy.—Lady of the Cashier, and leader of the fashion in Quodlibet.

Henrietta Handy.—Her daughter—supposed to have been favorably impressed by Mr. Agamemnon Flag.

Mrs. Trotter.—Mrs. Handy's housekeeper.

Servants, etc.—Sam, the waiter; William, the footman; Nace, the coachman; and Sarah, the maid, in Mr. Handy's service. Black Isaac, Kent bugle player; Yellow Josh, clarionet—Cicero, Neal Hopper's factotum. Billy Spike, Abel Brawn's fly-flapper, etc. etc.

[QUODLIBET.]

[CHAPTER I.]

ANTIQUITIES OF QUODLIBET—MICHAEL GRANT'S TANYARD DESTROYED BY THE CANAL—CONSEQUENCES OF THIS EVENT—TWO DISTINGUISHED INDIVIDUALS TAKE UP THEIR RESIDENCE IN THE BOROUGH—ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PATRIOTIC COPPERPLATE BANK—CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED TO AND FOLLOWED THAT MEASURE—MICHAEL GRANT'S OBJECTIONS TO IT.

It was at the close of the year 1833, or rather, I should say, at the opening of the following spring, that our Borough of Quodlibet took that sudden leap to greatness which has, of late, caused it to be so much talked about. Our folks are accustomed to set this down to the Removal of the Deposits. Indeed, until that famous event, Quodlibet was, as one might say in common parlance, a place not worth talking about—it might hardly be remarked upon the maps. But since that date, verily, like Jeshurun, it has waxed fat. It has thus come to pass that "The Removal" is a great epoch in our annals—our Hegira—the A. U. C. of all Quodlibetarians.

Michael Grant, a long time ago—that is to say, full twenty years—had a tanyard on Rumblebottom Creek, occupying the very ground which is now covered by the canal basin. Even as far back as that day he had laid up, out of the earnings of his trade, a snug sum of money, which sufficed to purchase the farm where he now lives at the foot of the Hogback. Quodlibet, or that which now is Quodlibet, was then as nothing. Michael's dwelling house and tanyard, Abel Brawn's blacksmith-shop, Christy M'Curdy's mill, and my school-house, made up the sum-total of the settlement. It is now ten years, or hard on to it, since the commissioners came this way and put the cap-sheaf on Michael's worldly fortune by ruining his tanyard and breaking up his business, whereof the damage was so taken to heart by the jury that, in their rage against internal improvements, they brought in a verdict which doubled Mr. Grant's estate in ready money, besides leaving him two acres of town lots bordering on the basin, and which, they say, are worth more to-day than the whole tanyard with its appurtenances ever was worth in its best time. This verdict wrought a strange appetite in our county, among the landholders, to be ruined in the same way; and I truly believe it was a chief cause of the unpopularity of internal improvements in this neighborhood, that the commissioners were only able to destroy the farms on the lowlands—which fact, it was said, brought down the price of the uplands on the whole line of the canal, besides creating a great deal of ill humor among all who were out of the way of being damaged.

With the money which this verdict brought him, Mr. Grant improved a part of his two acres—which he was persuaded to cut up into town lots—by building the brick tavern, and the store that stands next door to it. These were the first buildings of any note in Quodlibet, and are generally supposed to have given rise to the incorporation of the Borough by the Legislature. Jesse Ferret took a lease of the tavern as soon as it was finished, and set up the sign of "The Hero"—meaning thereby General Jackson—which, by-the-by, was the first piece of historical painting that the celebrated Quipes ever attempted. The store was rented by Frederick Barndollar for his son Jacob, who was just then going to marry Ferret's daughter Susan, and open in the Iron and Flour Forwarding and Commission line, in company with Anthony Hardbottle, his own brother-in-law.

This was the state of things in Quodlibet five years before "The Removal," from which period, up to the date of the Removal, although Barndollar & Hardbottle did a tolerable business, and Ferret had a fair run of custom, there were not above a dozen new tenements built in the Borough. But a bright destiny was yet in reserve for Quodlibet; and as I propose to unfold some incidents of its history belonging to these later times, I cannot pretermit the opportunity now afforded me to glance, though in a perfunctory and hasty fashion, at some striking events which seemed to presignify and illustrate its marvelously sudden growth.

I think it was in the very month of the Removal of the Deposits, that Theodore Fog broke up at Tumbledown, on the other side of the Hogback, and came over to Quodlibet to practice law. And it was looked upon as a very notable thing, that, in the course of the following winter, Nicodemus Handy should have also quitted Tumbledown and brought his sign, as a lottery agent, to Quodlibet, and set up that business in our Borough. There was a wonderful intimacy struck up between him and Fog, and a good many visits were made by Nicodemus during the fall, before he came over to settle. Our people marveled at this matter, and were not a little puzzled to make out the meaning of it, knowing that Nicodemus Handy was a shrewd man, and not likely, without some good reason for it, to strike up a friendship with a person so little given to business as Theodore Fog, against whom I desire to say nothing, holding his abilities in great respect, but meaning only to infer that as Theodore is considered high-flown in his speech, and rather too fond of living about Ferret's bar-room, it was thought strange that Nicodemus, who is plain spoken, and of the Temperance principle, should have taken up with him. It was not long after Mr. Handy had seated himself in Quodlibet, and placed his sign at the door of a small weather-boarded office, ten feet by twelve, and within a stone-throw of Fog's, before the public were favored with an insight into the cause of this intimacy between these two friends. This was disclosed in a plan for establishing The Patriotic Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet, the particulars whereof were made known at a meeting held in the dining-room of "The Hero" one evening in March, when Theodore Fog made a flowery speech on the subject to ten persons, counting Ferret and Nim Porter the bar-keeper. The capital of the bank was proposed to be half a million, and the stock one hundred dollars a share, of which one dollar was to be paid in, and the remainder to be secured by promissory notes, payable on demand, if convenient.

This excellent scheme found many supporters; and, accordingly, when the time came for action, the whole amount was subscribed by Handy and Fog and ten of their particular friends, who had an eye to being directors and officers of the bank—to whom might also be added about thirty boatmen, who, together with the boys of my academy, lent their names to Mr. Handy.

Through the liberality of Fog, the necessary cash was supplied out of three hundred dollars, the remains of a trust fund in his hands belonging to a family of orphans in the neighborhood of Tumbledown, who had not yet had occasion to know from their attorney, the said Theodore Fog himself, of their success in a cause relating to this fund which had been gained some months before. As Nicodemus managed the subscriptions, which indeed he did with wonderful skill, these three hundred dollars went a great way in making up the payments on considerably more than the majority of the stock: and this being adjusted, he undertook a visit to the Legislature, where, through the disinterested exertions of some staunch Democratic friends, he procured a most unexceptionable charter for the bank, full of all sorts of provisions, conditions, and clauses necessary to enable it to accommodate the public with as much paper money as the said public could possibly desire.

In consideration of these great services, Nicodemus Handy elected himself Cashier; and, at the same time, had well-nigh fallen into a quarrel with Fog, who had set his heart upon being President—which, in view of the fact that that gentleman's habits were somewhat irregular after twelve o'clock in the day, Nicodemus would by no means consent to. This dissension, however, was seemingly healed, by bringing in as President my worshipful pupil, the Hon. Middleton Flam, now our member of Congress, and by making Theodore one of the directors, besides giving him the law business of the bank. It was always thought, notwithstanding Fog pretended to be satisfied at the time with this arrangement, that it rankled in his bosom, and bred a jealousy between him and his associates in the bank, and helped to drive him to drinking faster than he would naturally have done, if his feelings had not been aggravated by this act of supposed ingratitude.

I should not omit to mention that Nicodemus Handy was a man of exact and scrupulous circumspection, and noted for the deliberation with which he weighed the consequences of his actions, or, as the common saying is, "looked before he leapt"—a remarkable proof of which kind of wisdom he afforded at this time. Having been compelled by circumstances to live beyond the avails of his lottery business, and thereby to bring himself under some impracticable liabilities, he made it a point of conscience, before he could permit himself to be clothed with the dignity of a cashier, or even to place a share of stock in his own name on the books, to swear out in open court, and to surrender, for the benefit of his numerous and patient creditors, his whole stock of worldly goods—consisting, according to the inventory thereof on record, which I have seen, of a cylindrical sheet-iron stove, two chairs, a desk and a sign-board, this latter being, as I remember, of the shape of a screen, on each leaf of which "Nicodemus Handy" was printed, together with the scheme of a lottery, set forth in large red and blue letters. He barely retained what the law allowed him, being his mere wearing apparel; to wit, a bran new suit of black superfine Saxony, one dozen of the best cambric linen shirts, as many lawn pocket handkerchiefs, white kid gloves, and such other trivial but gentlemanlike appurtenances as denoted that extreme neatness of dress in which Mr. Handy has ever taken a just pride, and which has been so often remarked by his friends as one of the strong points in his character. These articles, it was said, he had procured not more with a provident eye to that state of destitution into which the generous surrender of his property was about to plunge him, than with a decent regard to the respectability of appearance which the public, he conceived, had a right to exact from the Cashier of the Patriotic Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet. All right-minded persons will naturally commend this prudence, and applaud Mr. Handy's sense of the dignity proper to so important and elevated a station—a station which Theodore Fog, in his speech at "The Hero," so appropriately eulogized as one "of financial, fiscal, and monetary responsibility."

There was one circumstance connected with the history of the establishment of the bank that excited great observation among our folks: that was the dislike Michael Grant took up against it from its very beginning. It was an indiscriminate, unmitigable, dogged dislike to the whole concern, which, by degrees, brought him into a bad opinion of our Borough, and I verily believe was the cause why, from that time forward, he kept himself so much at his farm near the Hogback, and grew to be, as if it were out of mere opposition, so unhappily, and indeed I may say, so perversely stubborn in those iniquitous Whig sentiments which he was in the habit of uttering. I have heard him say that he thought as badly as a man could think, of the grounds for starting the bank, and still worse of the men who started it,—which, certainly, was a very rash expression, considering that our congressman, the Hon. Middleton Flam, was President and one of the first patrons of the institution, and that such a man as Nicodemus Handy was Cashier; to say nothing of Theodore Fog, whose habits, we are willing to confess, might, in the estimation of some men, give some little color to my worthy friend's vituperation.

Now, there was no man in Quodlibet whom Handy and Fog so much desired, or strove so hard, to bring into the bank scheme as Mr. Grant. They made every sort of effort and used all kinds of arguments to entice him. Nicodemus Handy on one occasion, I think it was in April, put the matter to him in such strong points of view, that I have often marveled since how the good gentleman stood it. He argued, with amazing cogency, that General Jackson had removed the deposits for the express purpose of destroying the Bank of the United States, and giving the State banks a fair field: that the Old Hero was an enthusiastic friend to State rights, and especially to State banks, which it was the desire of his heart to see increased and multiplied all over the country; that he was actually, as it were, making pets out of these banks, and was determined to feed them up with the public moneys and give them such a credit in the land as would forever shut out all hope to the friends of a National Bank to succeed with their purpose: and, finally, that although Clay and the Whigs were endeavoring to resist the General in his determination to establish new banks in the States, that resistance was already considered hopeless. It was with a visible air of triumph that Mr. Handy, in confirmation of this opinion, read from the Globe of the 21st of December previous these words:—

"The intelligent people of the West know how to maintain their rights and independence, and to repel oppression. Although foiled in the beginning, every Western State is about to establish a State bank institution. They are resolved to avail themselves of their own State credit, as well as of the National credit, to maintain a currency independent of foreign control. Mr. Clay's presses in Kentucky begin now to feel how vain are all their efforts to resist the determination of the people of the West. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky are resolved to take care of themselves, and no longer depend on the kind guardianship of Biddle, Clay & Co."

Having laid this fact before Mr. Grant, by way of clinching the argument Mr. Handy pulled out of his pocket a letter which he had just received from the Secretary of the Treasury. It contained a communication of the deepest import to the future fortunes of our Borough; which communication, as I have been favored by Mr. Handy with a copy, I feel happy to transcribe here for the edification of my reader. It is a circular, and came to our cashier printed on gilt-edged letter-paper, having the title of the bank, the date, and some other items filled up in writing.

"Treasury Department, April 1, 1834.

"Sir:—The Patriotic Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet has been selected by this Department as the depository of the public money collected in Quodlibet and its vicinity; and the Marshal will hand you the form of a contract proposed to be executed, with a copy of his instructions from this Department. In selecting your institution as one of the fiscal agents of the government, I not only rely on its solidity and established character, as affording a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the public money intrusted to its keeping, but I confide also in its disposition to adopt the most liberal course which circumstances will admit toward other moneyed institutions generally, and particularly those in your vicinity. The deposits of the public money will enable you to afford increased facilities to commerce, and to extend your accommodations to individuals; and as the duties which are payable to the government arise from the business and enterprise of the merchants engaged in foreign trade, it is but reasonable that they should be preferred in the additional accommodations which the public deposits will enable your institution to give, whenever it can be done without injustice to the claims of other classes of the community.

"To the President of the Patriotic Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet."

"There, sir," said Mr. Handy, after he had read this paper to Mr. Grant—"read that over again and tell me if there is any Quodlibetarian that ought not to rejoice in this great event, and lend his endeavors, with both heart and soul, to promote and sustain an institution so favored by the government. The Secretary, you perceive, has confidence in the 'solidity and established character' of our bank—how can you refuse your confidence after that? Sir, the Secretary is an honor to the Democracy of Quodlibet:—what does he say? Does he tell us to keep the public moneys locked up only for the selfish purposes of the government? Oh no: far from it; 'the deposits' says he, 'will enable you to afford increased facilities to commerce, and to extend your accommodations to individuals.' Mark that! there's a President and Secretary for you! True friends, Mr. Grant—true friends to the people. How careful are they of our great mercantile and trading classes! Sir, the government cannot do too much for such people as we are—that's the true Democratic motto—we expect a great deal—but they outrun our expectations. No more low prices for grain, Mr. Grant—no more scarcity of money:—accommodation is the word—better currency is the word—high prices, good wages and plenty of work is the word now-a-days. We shall have a city here before you can cleverly turn yourself round. Depend upon it, sir, we are destined to become a great, glorious, and immortal people."

"Sir," said Theodore Fog, interposing at this moment, with a look that wore a compound expression of thoughtful sternness and poetical frenzy—"when the historic muse shall hereafter contemplate the humble origin of Quodlibet——"

"Fog," interrupted Nicodemus, somewhat petulantly—and I feel sorry to be obliged to record this inconsiderate language—"Blame the historic muse!—we are now on business."

"As a director, sir," replied Fog, with a subdued air, but with a dignified gravity, "I have a right to speak. I meant to say, sir, in plain phrase, that Quodlibet must inevitably, from this day forth, under the proud auspices of democratic principles—obedient to that native impulse which the profound statesmanship of this people-sustaining and people-sustained administration has imparted to it, soar aloft to place herself upon the proud pinnacle of commercial prosperity, wealth, and power. I have no doubt, Mr. Grant, your tavern lot will increase to three times its present value. You ought to take stock;—let me tell you, sir, as a citizen of Quodlibet, you ought. As to the cash, that's a bagatelle. Handy and I can let you have any number of shares on your own terms. Flam will do anything we say to let you in. By-the-by, he got us the deposits. Flam's a man of influence—but whether on the whole he will make us the best President we could have procured, is perhaps somewhat apocryphal."

"You cannot fail to see," said Mr. Handy, "that we must all make our fortunes, if the government is only true to its word; and who can doubt it will be true? We start comparatively with nothing, I may say, speaking of myself—absolutely with nothing. We shall make a large issue of paper, predicated upon the deposits; we shall accommodate everybody, as the Secretary desires—of course, not forgetting our friends, and more particularly ourselves:—we shall pay, in this way, our stock purchases. You may run up a square of warehouses on the Basin; I will join you as a partner in the transaction, give you the plan of operations, furnish architectural models, supply the funds, et cetera, et cetera. We will sell out the buildings at a hundred per cent. advance before they are finished; Fog here will be the purchaser. We have then only to advertise in the papers this extraordinary rise of property in Quodlibet—procure a map to be made of our new city; get it lithographed, and immediately sell the lots on the Exchange of New York at a most unprecedented valuation. My dear sir, I have just bought a hundred acres of land adjoining the Borough, with an eye to this very speculation. You shall have an interest of one-half in this operation at a reasonable valuation—I shall want but a small profit, say two hundred per cent.—a mere trifle—in consideration of my labors in laying it off into streets, lanes, and alleys;—and if there is any convenience in it to you—although I know you are a moneyed man—you have only to make a proposal for a slice of accommodation—just drop a note now and then into the discount box. You understand. The Secretary will be delighted, my dear sir, to hear of our giving an accommodation to you. But there's one thing, Mr. Grant, I must not forget to remark—the Secretary, in fact, makes it a sort of sine qua non—you must come out a genuine—declare yourself a Whole Hog—and go for Flam in the fall elections. The Secretary expects, you know," and as he said this he laid his finger significantly upon his nose, "that the accommodation principle—is to be measurably—extended—in proportion to the—Democracy—of the applicants. You understand?—a word to the wise—that's all. It couldn't be expected, you perceive, that we, holding the deposits, should be quite as favorable to the Whigs, who rather charge us with experimenting on the currency—you know—and who, in fact, don't scruple to say that our banking system will be a failure—it couldn't be expected we should be as bountiful to them as to those who go with us in building up this concatenation—tweedle dum and tweedle dee, you know, betwixt you and me;—but it's made a point of—and has its effect on ulterior expectations—you understand. The long and the short is, without being mealy-mouthed, we must prefer the old Hero's friends;—but, after all, that's a small matter:—be a Democrat, and go for Flam!"

"Flam and the immutable principles of civil liberty!" said Fog, with great animation. "Middleton Flam, the embodiment and personification of those deep and profound truths, based upon the eternal distinctions of the greatest good to the greatest number! Diffusive wealth, combined capital, increased facilities to commerce, and accommodation to individuals—there is the multum in parvo of General Jackson's Democratic creed!—there is the glorious consummation of the war with the great money power, which, like Juggernaut, was crushing down the liberties of our Republic!"

Michael Grant was a patient listener, and a man of few words. He stood all the time that Fog and Handy were plying him with this discourse, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, looking down, with a grum cogitation, at his own image in the water of the basin, on the margin of which the parties had met, and every now and then rocking on his heels and flapping the soles of his feet sharply on the ground, denoting, by this movement, to those who knew his habit, that he was growing more and more positive in his opinion. Once or twice he was observed to raise his head, and with one eye half shut, seemed as if studying the heavens. At length he broke out with an answer which, from the vehemence of his tone, caused Handy and Fog to prick up their ears, and gaze upon each other with a look of incredulous surprise.

"Your bank, gentlemen," said he, "is a humbug. Your speculation in lots, your accommodations and the fortunes you are going to make, are humbugs. Flam and the immutable principles of civil liberty are humbugs, and the greatest humbug of all is your Democracy."

With these very rash and inconsiderate words, Mr. Grant turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Handy and Fog looking significantly at each other. From that time Mr. Grant was generally considered an enemy to our bank, and, as far as I can learn, never had any dealings with it.

Mr. Handy set up a dry laugh as soon as Mr. Grant was out of sight, and laughed on for some moments. At last he said, somewhat mysteriously, and with a great deal of deliberation—

"Fog, it's my opinion that the old tanner has cut his eye teeth—what do you think of him?"

"He labors," replied Fog, "under a sinistrous and defective obliquity of comprehension; and from all I can make out of this colloquy, I rather incline to the opinion that he is not very willing to embark largely in our stock." And saying this, Fog folded his arms and looked steadfastly in Mr. Handy's face.

"Nor, as I should judge," said Handy in a kind of whisper, "is he likely to join me in my speculation in town lots. Fog, don't forget, you will indorse my note for the purchase-money of that hundred acres—I shall discount it to-morrow—I like to pay cash—that was always my principle."

"Undoubtedly—consider me a sure card in that line," replied Fog:—"it is understood, of course, that you reciprocate the favor on my purchase of the meadow?"

"Without question—assuredly, Fog—one good turn deserves another."

"Then, let's go up and take a drink," said Fog, imitating the tone of a tragedy-player—"we'll call it twelve, although my dial points but half way from eleven."

"You know I never drink," quoth Handy.

"Then come and look on me while I that act perform," said Theodore.

"Agreed," said Nicodemus. And thereupon these trusty friends went straight to Nim Porter's bar.

[CHAPTER II.]

GREAT USEFULNESS OF THE BANK—SURPRISING GROWTH OF QUODLIBET—SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM—ORIGIN OF HIS DEMOCRACY—HIS LOGICAL ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF THE POCKETING OF THE BILL TO REPEAL THE SPECIE CIRCULAR—THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE AS DEVELOPED IN THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM.

In the course of the first year after The Removal, or as I should say, in the year One—speaking after our manner in Quodlibet—the bank made itself very agreeable to everybody. Mr. Flam came home from Congress after the end of the long session, and found everything prospering beyond his most sanguine expectations. Nicodemus Handy had put a new weather-boarded room to the back of his office for the use of the Directors, and the banking business was transacted in the front apartment where Nicodemus used to sell lottery tickets. There was one thing that strangers visiting Quodlibet were accustomed to remark upon in a jocular vein, regarding the bank—and that was the sign which was placed, as it were parapet-wise, along the eaves of the roof, and being of greater longitude than the front of the building, projected considerably at either end. Quipes has been held responsible for this, but I know that he could not help it, on account of the length of the name, which, nevertheless, it is due to him to say he endeavored, very much to my discontent, to shorten, both by orthographical device and by abbreviation, having painted it thus—

The Patrioti^c Coperplat^e Bank Of Quodli^bet;

notwithstanding which, it overran the dimensions of the tenement to which it was attached. I say strangers sometimes facetiously alluded to this discrepancy, by observing that the bank was like the old Hero himself, too great for the frame that contained it. And, truly, the bank did a great business! Mr. Handy, who is acknowledged to be a man of taste, procured one of the handsomest plates, it is supposed, that Murray, Draper & Fairman ever executed, and with about six bales of pinkish silk paper, and a very superior cylinder press, created an amount of capital which soon put to rest old Mr. Grant's grumbling about the want of solidity in the bank, and fully justified the Secretary's declaration of his confidence in its "established character as affording a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the public money intrusted to its keeping."

As a proof how admirably matters were conducted by Mr. Handy, the Directors soon found no other reason to attend at the Board than now and then to hold a chat upon politics and smoke a cigar; and the President, the Hon. Middleton Flam, having his October election on hand, was so thoroughly convinced of Nicodemus's ability, that I do not believe he went into the bank more than half a dozen times during the whole season.

It was in the course of this year, and pretty soon after the bank got the deposits, that Mr. Handy began his row of four story brick warehouses on the Basin, which now goes by the name of Nicodemus Row. He also laid the foundation of his mansion on the hill, fronting upon Handy Place; and which edifice he subsequently finished, so much to the adornment of our Borough, with a Grecian portico in front, and an Italian veranda looking toward the garden. As his improvements advanced in this and the next year, he successively reared a Temple of Minerva on the top of the ice-house, a statue of Apollo in the center of the carriage-circle, a sun-dial on a marble pillar where the garden walks intersect, and a gilded dragon weather-cock on the cupola of the stables. The new banking house was commenced early in the summer, and has been finished of very beautiful granite, being in its front, if I am rightly informed by Mr. Handy, an exact miniature copy of the Tomb of Osymandias: it is situated on Flam Street, the first after you leave the Basin, going northward. All the Directors, except Fog, followed the footsteps of their illustrious predecessor, Mr. Handy, and went to work to build themselves villas on the elevated ground back of the Borough, now known by the name of Copperplate Ridge,—which villas were duly completed in all manner of Greek, Roman, and Tuscan fashions. These being likewise imitated, in turn, by many friends of the bank who migrated hither from all parts and cast their lines in our Borough, Quodlibet hath thereby, very suddenly, grown to be, in a figurative sense, a pattern card of the daintiest structures of the four quarters of the world. Perhaps I may be too fast in making so broad an assertion—cupio non putari mendacem—I am not quite sure that, as yet, we have any well ascertained specimen of the Asiatic: but if Nicodemus Handy's pagoda, which he talked of building on the knoll in the center of his training course, had not been interrupted by an untoward event, of which it may become my duty to speak hereafter, I should, in that case, have made no difficulty in reiterating, with a clear conscience and without reservation, the remark which distrustfully and with claim of allowance I have ventured above.

My valuable patron not being resident actually within the Borough, and being, as I have said, very busy in the matter of his election during the greater part of the first year of the bank, had not much opportunity to devote himself to its concerns. But the Directors, partly aware of their own knowledge, how valuable was his influence with the Secretary, and partly persuaded thereof by the Cashier, established, with a liberality which Mr. Handy remarked at the time was exceedingly gentlemanlike, his salary as President at three thousand dollars a year—which sum, Mr. Flam himself has, more than once in my hearing, averred upon his honor, he did not consider one cent too much. And indeed, I feel myself bound to express my concurrence in this opinion, when I reflect upon the weight of his character, the antiquity of his family, the preponderance of his strong Democratic sentiments, and the expenses to which, as President, he was exposed in looking after the interests of the bank—more especially in the journeys to Washington, whereof I have heard him speak, for the purpose of explaining matters to the Secretary.

Connected with this matter of salary, and as having a natural propinquity to the subject, I may here cursorily, for I design to be more particular on this point hereafter, claim the privilege to enter a little into the family matters of my patron. And on this head, I would observe that the household of Mr. Flam is large. Of a truth, as some philosopher has remarked, mouths are not fed, nor bodies clad, without considerable of the wherewithal! There is Mrs. Flam, the venerated consort of our representative—a lady most honorably conducive to the multiplication of the strength and glory of this land; there is, likewise, Mr. Flam's sister Janet—truly an honor to her sex for instructive discourse and exemplary life; and there is Master Middleton, Junior, with his four sisters and three brothers, who may be all ranged into the semblance of a step-ladder. Great is Mr. Flam's parental tenderness toward this happy progeny—the reduplication and retriplication, if I may so express it, of himself and their respectable mamma. Yielding to the solicitude inspired by this tenderness, almost the first thing which our representative did, after the establishment of the bank—the means having thereby come the better to his hand—was to send Master Middleton, Junior, who was very urgent in his entreaties to that point, to Europe, that the young gentleman, by two or three years travel, might witness the distresses and oppressions of monarchical government, and become confirmed in his democratic sentiments. A refinement of sensibility in Mr. Flam, which I might almost denominate fastidious, has also operated with him to require the education of his daughters to be conducted under his own roof. He would never hear, for one moment, any persuasion to trust them, even at their earliest age, in the public school—considerately fearful lest they might form intimacies unbecoming the station to which he destined them in after-life. They have consequently been placed under the special tuition of a most estimable lady, Mademoiselle Jonquille, a resident governess, who is enjoined to speak to them nothing but French. This lady, among other things, teaches them music, and is aided in the arduous duties allotted to her by a drawing-master of acknowledged ability in water-colors, and a very superior professor of dancing, who instructs them in the elegant accomplishment of waltzing and galloping, which, Mr. Flam says, is now-a-days held to be indispensable in the first Democratic circles at Washington, where it has always been his design to introduce the young ladies into high life.

It will not be out of place here to mention that the worthy subject of this desultory memoir, my patron and former pupil, inherited a large fortune from his father, the late Judge Flam, who was especially honored by old John Adams, or, as the better phrase is, the elder Adams, with an appointment to the bench on the night of the third of March, Anno Domini 1801; and I have often heard Mr. Middleton say that his father had, up to the day of his lamented departure from this world, which melancholy event happened in the year of our Lord 1825, the greatest respect for General Jackson; which liking for the Old Hero descended to his son, along with the family estate, and serves satisfactorily to account for my former pupil's ardent attachment to Democratic principles, as in the sequel I shall make appear.

I do not desire to conceal the fact that Judge Flam, and even Mr. Middleton himself, for some years after he came to man's estate, were both reputed to belong to what was generally, at that time, denominated and known by the appellation of the Old Federal party, and what, in common parlance, has been sometimes scoffingly termed The Black Cockade; and that the Judge, who was always noted for being very stiff in his opinions, maintained his connection nominally with that party until the day of his death. I mention this not in derogation of Mr. Middleton our representative, but rather in the way of commendation, because I am by this fact the more strongly confirmed in my admiration of the greatness of his character—seeing that his conversion to Democracy is the pure result of reflection and conviction, which is more laudable, in my humble thinking, than to be "a born veteran Democrat," as I once heard a great man boast himself.

Now this conversion being a notable matter, I can by no means pretermit a veritable account of it, which happens to be fully within my power to disclose, I being, as I may say, a witness to the whole course of it.

Everybody remembers that most signal of all the literary productions of General Jackson's various and illustrious pen, his letter to Mr. Monroe, dated the 12th of November, Anno Domini 1816. It came—in the language of my venerated friend, Judge Flam—like the sound of a trumpet upon the ears of all of the Old Federalists. "Now is the time," says General Jackson, in that immortal letter, which I transcribed, as soon as I saw it in print, into my book of memorable things, and which I now quote verbatim et literatim:—

"Now is the time to exterminate that monster called Party Spirit. By selecting characters most conspicuous for their probity, virtue, capacity, and firmness, without any regard to party, you will go far to, if not entirely, eradicate those feelings which, on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way, and perhaps have the pleasure and honor of uniting a people heretofore politically divided. The Chief Magistrate of a great and powerful nation should never indulge in party feelings. His conduct should be liberal and disinterested, always bearing in mind that he acts for the whole, and not a part of the community."

This letter of the last of the Romans was published in the National Intelligencer, and I happened to be with Judge Flam when it first met his eye. He was sipping his tea. The venerable Judge read it twice; took up the cup, and, in a musing, thoughtful mood, burnt his mouth with the hot liquid so badly that he was obliged to call for cold water.—Just at that moment, Middleton, his son, came into the parlor: he had been out shooting partridges.

"My dear Middleton, read that," said the Judge.

Middleton sat down and read it; and then looked intently at his father, waiting to hear what he would say.

"Middleton, my son," said he in a very deliberate and emphatic manner, "There's our man. General Jackson has been called a Hero—he's a Sage, a wise man, a very wise man. We have been kept in the mire too long: these Jeffersons and Madisons, and Nicholases and Randolphs, and all that Virginia Junto (I think that was the very word he used) have trodden us in the dust. They, with all the Democracy at their back, have lorded it over us for sixteen years. We owe them an old grudge. But our time is coming, (this expression he repeated twice.) Remember, my son, if ever you get into a majority, stick to it. Bring up your children to it. You have a long account to settle:—I shall bequeath to you the Vengeance of the Federal party. We must rally at once upon Andrew Jackson. He will bring us what it is fashionable to call 'the people.'—We shall bring him the talent, the intelligence, and the patriotism of the land. In such an alliance how can it be otherwise but that we shall have all the power?—and then, if we fail to play our cards with skill, we shall deserve to lose the game. Let Jackson be our candidate for the next Presidency, and let our gathering word be, in the sentiment of this memorable letter, 'The Union of the People and the extermination of the Monster of Party.' Do not slumber, my son, but give your energies to this great enterprise."

Mr. Middleton took this advice of his venerable father greatly to heart. "Up with Jackson, and down with Party!" said he, after a long rumination; "good, excellent—nothing can be better!" And several times that night, before he went to bed, he audibly uttered the same words, as he walked backward and forward across the room.

From this time Judge Flam wrote many letters to his friends, disclosing the views he had expressed to Middleton; and by degrees the matter ripened and ripened, until things were so contrived as to bring about what Judge Flam used to smile and say, was "a spontaneous, unpremeditated burst of popular feeling," in the nomination of the General. And the Judge used to laugh outright, when the papers took strong ground in the General's favor, as the candidate who was brought out "without intrigue or party management." The Old Hero and Sage, we all know, was cheated out of his first election; which circumstance greatly embittered his early friends, who, from that time—Mr. Middleton among the rest—took a very decided stand for Reform, Retrenchment, Economy, and the Rights of the People.

The Judge did not live to witness this second effort which resulted so gloriously for the Democratic cause; but his son stuck close to the Old Hero, and was among his most ardent supporters to the last. When the General succeeded, his first care was to show his gratitude to that disinterested band of patriots who so freely surrendered their old principles and abandoned their old comrades in his behalf. He brought them into office, just to show that he was determined to carry out the doctrine of his letter; and they were loudest in their praise of him for the sake of the old grudge, of which Judge Flam spoke to his son, and to indemnify their long suffering in the cause of the country, in the course of which they had, for so many years, been strangers to power. So between these two persuasions, it is not to be wondered at that they should have become the principal friends and most confidential advisers of the General.

Having thus got upon an elevation, from whence they could look backward upon their past errors, and forward to their future hopes, a new light dawned upon every man of them; and thereupon they straightway became sick and sorry for having so long sinned against Democracy, and grew ashamed of that black cockade which George Washington wore in the Revolution; made open renunciation of their former pretended attachment to his principles; canonized Mr. Jefferson as a saint, whom they had formerly reviled as the chief of sinners; purged out their old Federal blood; took deep alterative draughts of detergent medicine; and, finally, like true patriots, came forth regenerated, thorough-bred whole-hog Democrats, sworn to follow the new Democratic principle through all its meanderings, traverses, dodgings, and duckings to the end. Indeed, Mr. Middleton Flam, our honorable representative, has more than once, in some of his later speeches before the people, contended, that although his father was attached to George Washington's school of politics, which, as he remarked, naturally arose out of the prejudices created by the revolutionary war—in which the old Judge had served as a soldier—yet, that he, Middleton, never was truly an admirer of that gentleman's theory of government or system of measures—but, on the contrary, held them in marked disesteem, and from his earliest youth had a strong inclination toward that freedom from restraint, which, in man and boy, is the best test of the new Democratic principle. In proof of this tendency of his youthful opinions, he mentioned, with most admirable effect, an exploit, in which, when not more than twelve years of age, he gallantly stood up at the head of a party of his school-fellows to bar out the tutor and take a holiday, on the ground of the indefeasible rights of man, with a view to attend a great political meeting of the friends of Jefferson, just previous to the second election of that Apostle of Democracy.

Be that as it may, our distinguished member of Congress is now, by force of reflection and conviction, as pure, unadulterated, and, as our people jocularly denote it, as patent a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat as Theodore Fog himself, whose attachment to popular principles, habits, and manners, and whose unalterable adhesion to the new Democratic theory, are written in every line of his face and in every movement of his body:—and so, Mr. Flam avers, is every one of his black-cockade friends who have got an office. "Thus it is,"—if I may be allowed to quote a beautiful sentiment from one of Fog's speeches—"thus it is, that by degrees, the errors of old opinions are washed out by the all-pervading ablution of the Democratic principle following in the footsteps of the march of intellect; and so true is it, that the body politic, like quicksilver, regurgitates and repudiates the feculence of Federalism."

Nicodemus Handy has an attachment for Mr. Flam, which is truly fraternal. It goes so far as to prevent him from ever contradicting Mr. Middleton in any fact, or gainsaying him in any opinion—although I did think at one time, when Nicodemus was thought to be rich, that he was a little bold in his sentiments on two or three matters wherein our member differed from him. One I remember in particular; it was when the Old Hero pocketed the Specie Circular Bill. Mr. Handy thought, for a little while, that the circular was too hard upon the banks and the trading people, and he seemed to insinuate that the General was rather cornered by Congress, when they ordered its repeal by two-thirds of both Houses; and that, consequently, as a good Democrat, he ought to have submitted to the will of the people in that matter, and allowed them to have the law after it was passed. Mr. Flam was diametrically opposed to him, and proved, I thought conclusively, that, according to the sound Quodlibetarian Democratic principle, the General was altogether right in putting the act of Congress aside and not allowing them to overset his plans by another vote of two-thirds. "For," he inquired with great force of argument, adopting the Socratic form, "what is Congress? The representatives of the people, by districts and by States. For whom can any one man in that body speak? For his own district, or for his own State—no more. Now, what is the President? Sir," said he, in that solemn and impressive tone in which he addresses the House at Washington, "the President himself has answered that question in his immortal Protest against the Senate—he is 'the direct representative of the American people,' and, as he took occasion once to say in his Message, 'It will be for those in whose behalf we all act, to decide whether the Executive Department of the Government, in the steps which it has taken on this subject, has been found in the line of its duty.' The President, sir, is the representative of the whole people—not of a district, not of a State, but of the whole nation. Why should these representatives of the parts undertake to dictate to the representative of the whole? It is for the people to decide whether, in putting that bill in his pocket, he was in the line of his duty. Sir, there is the broad buttress upon which the Democratic principle reposes, and will repose forever. Jackson has determined, as representative of the people, that the Specie Circular shall not be repealed, and every true Democrat will of course say that he is right. I am surprised that you, Handy, should give any countenance to the factious doctrine set up by the Whigs, that Congress has a right to array itself against the clearly expressed will of the people, when uttered through the paramount representative of the whole nation."

Mr. Handy was evidently confounded by this unanswerable argument, and, of course, did not attempt to answer. I confess, for my own part, I listened with admiration and amazement at the dialectic skill with which so abstruse a subject was so briefly yet so clearly elucidated, and I inwardly ejaculated, in the language of the afflicted man of Uz, "How forcible are right words!"

My late pupil's reflections were drawn to this question of the Specie Circular with more intensity of regard, from a very natural train of circumstances, which had great influence in inducing an elaborate study of the subject. Mr. Handy has often said that Mr. Flam was the very best customer our bank had from the beginning. Acting, as he always did, upon the principle that our first care is due to those who are nearest to us, or, according to the adage, that charity begins at home, the President of the bank refused to borrow from any other institution, but determined exclusively to patronize his own. This principle he carried to the romantic extent of borrowing four times as much as anybody else; and as he always contended for it as the most approved theorem in banking, that the wider and the more remote the circulation of the paper of a bank, the better for its profit, he employed these funds in the purchase of a large quantity of the Chickasaw Reserve lands. By these means Mr. Flam became the proprietor of a vast number of acres in that Southwest country; and as the Specie Circular was a most laudable contrivance to stop overtrading and speculating in the public lands, it occurred to our worthy representative that the less the public lands were sold, the more his would come into the market at good prices; and so, with a view to the benefit of Quodlibet, where he expected to invest the profits, he became a strong advocate of the Circular. This set him to studying the question of the pocketing of the bill for its repeal, whereof I have spoken above, and enabled him to convince himself how deeply that matter was connected with the development of the Democratic principle in the manner put forth in his argument to Mr. Handy.

Thus does it come to pass that, step by step, as our government rolls on, its fundamental features are successively disclosed in the practical operations of that sublime system which so securely intrenches the good of the people in the doctrines of genuine Quodlibetarian Democracy, as now of late, for the first time, fully understood and practiced.

Ever after that notable discourse, Mr. Handy showed himself, both in private and at our public meetings, the stern, uncompromising champion of the Specie Circular and of the broad representative character of the President. The other questions upon which I have found him to differ occasionally with Mr. Flam, shared pretty nearly the same fate as this. The Cashier ultimately fell into entire harmony of sentiment in all matters with the President; though, as I have insinuated before, in the flood-tide of Mr. Handy's fortune, when he began to be accounted a man of wealth, he was, in accordance with a principle of human nature founded upon the corrupting and debasing influence of riches, much more difficult to bring into perfect conformity of opinion with Mr. Flam, than in the ebb. Yet, I would here remark that, almost in the same degree that Mr. Handy yielded his assent to the doctrines of the Hon. Middleton Flam, did the rank and file of our sturdy and independent Democracy yield to Mr. Handy; the whole party being kept in a harmonious agreement and accord by what Fog terms "the electric diffusion of the Democratic principle through the whole circle of hand-in-hand, unflinching, unwavering, uncorruptible, and power-frowning-down yeomanry of the most virtuous and enlightened nation upon the terrestrial globe."

[CHAPTER III.]

FURTHER DISCOURSE RELATING TO THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM—CORRECTION IN THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF HIS FAMILY SEAT—HIS RESPECT FOR THE PEOPLE—VERY ORIGINAL VIEWS ENTERTAINED BY HIM ON THIS SUBJECT—HIS LIBERALITY IN MONEY MATTERS—AVERSION TO THE LAW REGARDING INTEREST—DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF THAT QUESTION—HIS ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY AND THE WORKING PEOPLE—INGENIOUS AND PROFOUND ILLUSTRATION OF THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE.

Holding, as I do, our Democratic leader, the Hon. Middleton Flam, in the most deservedly profound respect, and knowing him to be, if I may be allowed the expression, a bright exemplar of Democracy, and containing in himself, metaphorically speaking, the epitome of all sound opinions, I am fully authorized by the common usage regarding public characters to bring him and his affairs conspicuously into the view of the world, not for censure, neither for praise, although no man is better entitled to the latter, but for instruction. Such is the destiny of distinguished men, that their lives are common property for the teaching of their generation. Duly acknowledging the weight of this maxim, I shall venture in the present chapter to give my reader a still closer insight into the private concerns of our representative; for which task I feel myself somewhat specially qualified, through the bountiful hospitality of that excellent gentleman, who has not only welcomed me to his board often on week days, and always on Sundays, but who has even flattered me, more than once, by the remark that he would not take umbrage at such impartial development of his life and opinions as he knew I, better than any other of his friends, (truly herein his kindness has overrated my worthiness,) had it in my power to make.

The old family seat of the Flams is about two miles from Quodlibet. It is upon the Bickerbray road; and, taking in all the grounds belonging to the domicile, the tract is somewhere about eight hundred acres; by far the greater portion of which is a flat range of woodland and field, watered by Grasshopper Run, which falls into the Rumblebottom. The tract used to be called, in Judge Flam's time, "The Poplar Flats," and the house, at that day, went by the name of "Quality Hall:" but ever since Mr. Middleton has had it, which, as may be gathered from what I have imparted in the last chapter, has been from the time that the old Black Cockades began to think of turning Democrats; ever since that day the spelling has been gradually changing, and the house now goes by the settled name of "Equality Hall," and the tract is always written by our people "The Popular Flats." Mr. Middleton greatly approves of this change, for two reasons which he has had occasion to take into his serious reflections—First; "Because," he says, "in the Quodlibetarian Democratic system, as now understood, words are things." "Not only things, sir," said he, in a discourse one day, at his own table, "but important and valuable things. I have observed," he continued, "in our country, especially among the unflinching, uncompromising Democrats, that a name is always half the battle. For instance, sir, we wish to destroy the bank; we have only to call it a Monster: we desire to put down an opposition ticket, and keep the offices among ourselves; all that we have to do is to set up a cry of Aristocracy. If we want to stop a canal, we clamor against Consolidation: if we wish it to go on, it is only to change the word—Develop the Resources. When it was thought worth our while to frighten Calhoun with the notion that we were going to hang him, we hurraed for the Proclamation; and after that, when we wanted to gain over his best friends to our side—State-Rights was the word. Depend upon it, gentlemen, with the true Quodlibetarian Democracy, names are things: that is the grand secret of the 'New-Light system.'"

Mr. Flam's second reason for approving the change in the spelling of Poplar Flats and Quality Hall, did not depend upon such a philosophical subtlety as the first; it was simply because he had very nigh lost his first election to Congress from inattention to this material point of orthography. Quality Hall, some of the Democrats of our region were unreasonable and headstrong enough to say, was not so Democratic a name as their candidate ought to have for his place of residence; and if it had not been that our representative discovered this in time to convince them that it was an old-fashioned way of spelling Equality Hall, I believe, in my conscience, he would have made out very badly: but luckily for this district, and I may say, for the nation, this error in spelling was corrected in time to set all straight; and Mr. Flam, from that day, not only put the E before the Q, but, in token of that incident, and by way of a remembrancer, always spoke of Equality Hall as built upon Popular Flats, which sounded very well in the ears of the New Lights, and no doubt went a great way to keep him in Congress ever after. Therefore I repeat, after my patron and friend, words are things;—and, democratically speaking, in the sense of a New Light, I might even say better than things.

Equality Hall is a building which looks larger than it is, from the circumstance that it was originally a one-storied, irregular cottage of brick, but in the Judge's time a second story was put to it; and, almost immediately after Mr. Middleton came to be the owner, he enlarged the eastern gable by widening it to nearly forty feet, and building it up considerably above the roof, and then adding to it a grand Grecian Temple porch with niches for statues, and with fluted Doric columns of wood, which thus constituted what Mr. Middleton calls his façade and principal front to the building. The effect of this piece of magnificence was to screen the old-cottage from view, and to impress the beholder with the idea of a grand building peeping out upon the Bickerbray road between the foliage of two weeping willows, which the old Judge put there before Mr. Jefferson's election.

I have heard some fastidious, not to say malevolent critics, find fault with this new addition to the building, upon the score that it had too much pretense about it; and that one was always disappointed upon finding all this grandeur of outside to be but a mere piece of theatrical show, without having anything to correspond to it within. Mr. Flam has heard the same objection, but he has always treated it with the contempt it deserved. "It was intended for show," he observed one day addressing the people from the hustings, when he had occasion to notice a remark of one of these caviling gentlemen, who had said something about having walked behind the portico to find the house—and I shall never forget how his eye kindled and his form dilated as he spoke—"Show, sir! Of course, it was put there for show. What else could it be put for? What is any portico put up for? It faces toward the road, sir—it was designed to face toward the road. When I built that portico, I wished the people, sir, to see it; the best I have shall always be shown to the people. I trust, sir, that my respect for the people shall never so far abate, as to induce me to neglect them. My house, sir, intrinsically is that of an humble citizen; there are a dozen equal to it in this county; but that part of it which is intended to gratify the people is unsurpassed here or anywhere else. I have laid out, sir, a small fortune on that portico to gratify the people: all that I have comes from them—all that I ever expect to be, I hope to derive from them: who has so good a right as they to require me to put my best foot foremost, when they are the spectators? On the same principle, sir, when I appear in public, I dress in the most expensive attire, I drive the best horses, and procure the finest coach. My turnout is altogether elaborate, studiously particular—simply because I hold the people in too much esteem, to shab them off with anything of a secondary quality, while Providence has blessed me with the means of providing them the best. That, sir, is what I call a keystone principle in the arch of Democratic government: that is the sentiment, and that alone, which is to give perpetuity to this——"

"Fair fabric of freedom," said Theodore Fog, who was among the auditory, and perceived that Mr. Flam hesitated for a word to convey his idea.

"Thank you, my friend," courteously replied Mr. Flam, "I am indebted to you for the word—fair fabric of freedom."

Coming back from this digression, which I have the rather indulged because of the eloquence, as well as the just Democratic sentiment it breathes, I proceed with my sketch of the homestead of our distinguished leader of the politics of Quodlibet.

If I were asked what constituted the most striking feature in the arrangements of this very admirable establishment, I should say it was the judicious admixture of a laudable economy, with the greatest possible effect in the way of outward exhibition. For instance, the grounds were embellished with sundry structures, apparently at great cost, and producing a most satisfactory impression on the eye, but which, when examined, would be found to be, for the most part, painted imitations of a very cheap kind. Thus there was to be seen from the portico, peering above a thicket on the Grasshopper Run, an old castle with ivy-crowned battlements, greatly enriching the view; at the end of the long walk in the garden, a magnificent obelisk rose forty feet above a bed of asparagus; the entrance to the stable-yard was through the Gothic archway of an old chapel, exceeding pleasant to behold; and the ice pond was guarded by a palisade composed of muskets, lances, swords, shields, and cannon, flanked at each end by a pile of drums and colors. All these several embellishments a nice observation would determine to be executed in oil painting, upon wooden screens sawed into the requisite figures. But even this expense would, perhaps, have been avoided, had it not been that Quipes, our artist, owed Mr. Flam twenty-five dollars on account of a debt which Mr. Flam had to pay for him, to get him out of jail, for the sake of his vote, when we first elected our public-spirited representative to Congress. Owing to this circumstance, connected with the fact that Sam Hardesty, the joiner, became insolvent on his contract for building the big portico, whereby Mr. Flam was obliged to advance money to him in order to get it finished, our member conceived that it would be a good plan to work these debts out of his two friends, by setting them about the decorations I have described. Besides, he reasoned with himself that it was always well to give employment to the working people about him, with a view to encourage industry and afford a practical illustration of the benignant influence of the great Democratic principle upon society—a consideration which Mr. Flam on no occasion ever permitted himself to lose sight of. By this judicious management he accomplished a fourfold purpose: namely, the beautifying of Popular Flats; the execution of these rich specimens of art, at less than half their value; the employment of two very meritorious fragments of the people; and, above all, a most satisfactory development of the excellence and usefulness of the great New-Light Democratic principle.

Mr. Flam never was what you might call a moneyed man. For although his farms were very productive, and he had a considerable income from stock in the United States Bank; and although the expenses of his family were very far short of what the world might, from the show he made, suppose them to be; yet he was in the habit of parting with his money as fast as it came to hand. There were a great number of deserving but needy persons who were often at the Popular Flats, and who did not hesitate to borrow all the funds Mr. Flam could spare, (if he had a fault it was the generosity of his lendings,) and in this way to keep him, as he has often told me himself, very bare. To make sure against loss he had the prudence never to lend without bond and mortgage, with a power of attorney to confess judgment; and as he ever avowed what he called his most irrevocable opinion, that the interest law was exceedingly oppressive upon the industry of the country, he invariably made his own bargain on that point—sagaciously remarking, as I once heard him to Nicholas Hardup, the cattle dealer, who was under execution upon a judgment, and came to borrow the amount from Mr. Flam, "Money, sir, is a commodity like wheat or cattle; its value is regulated by the relations of supply and demand. Society will never prosper till that principle is universally recognized. We go for it, Mr. Hardup, as cardinal in the Democratic creed. Labor, to be free, requires that the money contract also should be free. Why should the poor man pay six per cent. when money is worth but five? Why should he be prevented paying seven, eight, or nine, even, if he finds it his interest to give it—or cannot do without it? No, sir, Equal Rights, Liberty of Conscience, and Unrestricted Freedom of Contract—there is the buttress of Democratic government!"

It often happened, as such things will happen, that Mr. Flam became the loser by his generosity; and as it was a maxim with him to inculcate the most rigid punctuality in all engagements, he has never felt himself at liberty to relax what he regarded this salutary rule; so that, on many occasions, he has been compelled to submit to the unpleasant and expensive operation of closing his accounts on the bond and mortgage, by taking possession of the mortgaged property; and in this way, as he sometimes feelingly complains to his friends, he has become encumbered with more land than he knows what to do with. He has, however, gradually got through a great deal of this trouble by renting out his farms; a course which he intends to persevere in until his children are able to take the management of them.

Mr. Handy has several times endeavored to persuade him to make his improvements rather more permanent, and to take down these embellishments I have been describing; rather rashly as I thought, calling them, to Mr. Flam's face, pasteboard scenery, gingerbread nonsense, and twopenny gimcracks: and he insinuated that if our worthy representative would lay out some of his "accommodation" in a more solid manner upon Popular Flats, it would tell hereafter to his advantage. But Mr. Flam turns a deaf ear to all Nicodemus's preaching. He says that the accommodation is better laid out in the Chickasaw Reserve, where he means to realize a large fortune; and as to what Mr. Handy is pleased to call gimcracks and gingerbread, that, in fact, is the only kind of decoration in which a man, who respects the simplicity and purity of Democratic government, ought to indulge his taste. "If," said he, "my old castle, my obelisk, or my Gothic gateway were built of stone instead of white pine, a fair inference might be made against me of a lurking wish to restore the exploded aristocratic system of primogeniture and entails. It would be said I was building for my son and his eldest born. Thank God, no such treasonable design can be inferred from this gimcrack and gingerbread, as you wittily term it. When I go, sir, my estate is to be cut up as our Democratic republican laws ordain; and my gimcrack and gingerbread can be plowed in as easily as the dockweed. Strange as it may sound to the ears of some, gimcrack and gingerbread are the elements of our new Democratic theory. Sir, our government should glory in it:—it does glory in it. There is no reproach in the fact that we neither build, legislate, think, nor determine for the next generation. We attend to ourselves—that is genuine New-Light Democracy. We oppose Vested Rights, we oppose Chartered Privileges, we oppose Pledges to bind future Legislatures, we oppose Tariffs, Internal Improvements, Colleges, and Universities, on the broad Democratic ground that we have nothing to do with Posterity. Posterity will be as free as we are. Let it take care of itself. I glory, sir, in saying New-Light Democracy riots in gimcrack and gingerbread."

This eloquent outburst of sentiment effectually silenced Mr. Handy, and brought him thoroughly into Mr. Flam's opinion. I rejoice that my intimacy with this able statesman should have afforded me this opportunity to show the brilliancy with which his mind sparkles in the demonstration of political truth, and the wonderful power with which it converts apparently trivial thoughts into golden illustrations of the Democratic theory as lately discovered and practiced.

[CHAPTER IV.]

THE SECOND ERA—POPULATION OF QUODLIBET—INCREASE UNPARALLELED IN ANCIENT CITIES; EQUALED ONLY BY MILWAUKEE, ETC.—SUCCESS OF THE BANK—ATTACK UPON IT IN CONGRESS—THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM'S TRIUMPHANT VINDICATION—SKETCH OF HIS CELEBRATED SPEECH BEFORE THE NEW LIGHTS—INIMITABLE IRONY ON THE DIVORCE OF GOVERNMENT AND BANK—MERITED COMPLIMENT TO THE HEAD OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY—THAT DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS.

It is no part of my design in the compilation of this little history to preserve the form of a regular, chronological narrative of the course of events in Quodlibet; for although the material for such a continuous recital abounds in the memoranda which I have preserved, yet it seems better to suit the purpose of the respectable committee who have invoked me to this labor, that I should rather make excerpts from the mass of my papers, in such wise as to bring before my reader the condition of the Borough at several epochs, with an occasional reference to such incidents as may serve to explain the opinions of our people and illustrate the course of that beautiful system of politics which the world—I mean that world of which our Borough is the center—has consented to honor with the epithet of Quodlibetarian; and in which designation, in my poor judgment, is comprehended the essence of the true theory by which this nation has advanced to its present unparalleled state of prosperity and grandeur.

Following this suggestion, I propose now to lead my reader to that epoch in the annals of the Borough which dates in the fourth year after the Removal, or, in the vernacular computation, the year of 1836-7. The population of Quodlibet had now reached to the astonishing amount of fifteen hundred and eighty odd souls—the increase being altogether without an example in the history of civilization, excepting, perhaps, in that of Milwaukee, Navarino, and some other of those seemingly incredible and fabulous creations of art which are said to have sprung up under the beneficent auspices of the Quodlibetarian theory, as the same has been practiced in this government for some few years past. Quodlibet, I repeat, had reached in population upwards of fifteen hundred and eighty inhabitants, as was ascertained by a diligent enumeration made under the direction of our New-Light Club, with a view to the election of a constable held this year in the Borough;—and when we reflect that at the date of the Removal, the whole settlement fell short of two hundred persons all told, it will be perceived that in three years our increase has exceeded seven hundred per cent.! Verily, neither London, Athens, nor Palmyra, Karnac, Luxor, nor even Milwaukee itself, I doubt, has ever manifested so prolific an augmentation.

Nicodemus Handy's row of stores on the Basin was the first improvement, as I have already informed my reader; then Copperplate Ridge was studded with buildings; at the same time Flam Street was enriched with the bank and seven brick buildings; then came the Female Lyceum, with the Town Hall in the second story of the same building, Peter Ounce's Boatmen's Hotel on the other side of the Basin, the Hay Scales, Zachary Younghusband's (the tinplate worker) shop, and Dr. Thomas G. Winkleman's Druggist Store and Soda Water Pavilion. These, as well as I can recollect, were the principal establishments erected in Quodlibet in the three years I have referred to. There were a number of private houses built in this period, and a whole settlement of free negroes made below the Basin, on the line of the canal. I ought to mention, too, that Nicodemus Handy this year dug out the foundations, and, I believe, built the cellar walls, of a second row of stores and of a new hotel designed on a very large scale, with extensive baths to be attached to it. These buildings, it pains me to say, in advance, never got higher than the first story, as I shall be obliged to relate hereafter.

The bank did a sweeping business all this time; and nothing can be conceived more beautiful than the theory upon which it was conducted. It has run out of my memory how many new bales of pink silk paper were turned off by it, but the amount would scarcely be believed if I were to set it down; and the accommodation principle was carried out to an extent that must have been truly gratifying to the Secretary. Still, even this most exemplary institution did not escape the malevolence of the Whigs. That ever-complaining party, as the Hon. Middleton Flam assured us by letter, were making a great ado in Congress about all the banks, but particularly about ours—alleging, in their usual factious manner, that the government would lose money by us, as well as by the others.

Deeming this charge as one of peculiar atrocity, we at once determined to take it up in our New-Light Club, and stamp upon it the most conclusive refutation. We accordingly fixed an evening for the discussion, during Christmas week, when we knew that our member would be at home to visit his family; and he was of course invited to attend and give his views upon this very interesting question. The meeting was in the Town Hall up stairs above the Female Lyceum. All Quodlibet was present. I shall be long thankful to Providence for the dignified station which it fell to my lot to fill on that memorable occasion. By a most unexpected but most felicitous chance, I was honored that night with a call to the chair; the worthy Mr. Snuffers, our President, not being able to attend, in consequence of the interesting condition of Mrs. Snuffers. As the subject of discussion was one of thrilling interest, the most intense anxiety prevailed to hear the speech of our eloquent representative. He came fully prepared, bringing with him a load of documents. Our Vice, Mr. Doubleday, who is a solid thinking, shrewd person, of that maturity of judgment which it is impossible to impose upon, and himself, by-the-by, a first-rate debater, told me, after we broke up, that Mr. Flam's discourse that evening on the banking system at large and on the safety of the banks in particular, was one of the closest pieces of reasoning he had ever listened to in his life. I regret that I have preserved so imperfect an outline of this speech, but such as it is I offer it to my reader.

The orator commenced very appropriately by remarking how impossible it was, in the nature of things, to satisfy the Whigs on any point. He said there were three parties in Congress: First, the Whigs—who still croaked about a National Bank—and his description of their croaking was to the last degree humorous; it produced peals of laughter. Second, the thorough-going Quodlibetarian Whole Hogs, who were steadfast and immovable for the State Banks; and a third party, small in numbers, "attenuated"—as he remarked with irresistibly comic effect—"and gaunt; feeble, shrill, and like crickets who might scarcely be seen in daytime;" and who, when the bill to Regulate the Deposits was up, presented what, in his opinion, was the most alarming, if it had not been the most ridiculous scheme, in relation to the public money, that had ever been hatched in the hotbed of faction. These men, he said called themselves Conservatives: "And what think you, Mr. President," he asked, "was their project? It was, sir, to separate the Government from the Banks." Here Mr. Flam was interrupted by a loud laugh. "A Mr. Gordon," he said, "was at the head of this little troop. He proposed a bill, two sessions ago, to place the revenue and public moneys in the hands of Receivers—the moneys were to be paid to these Receivers in GOLD and SILVER! and no bank was to be intrusted with a dollar!! And this," exclaimed Mr. Flam, with a tone of inimitable irony, "was to be done for the SAFETY of the public Treasure! Your money not safe in the hands of the banks, but perfectly secure in the keeping of these honest Receivers, who were to be furnished with vaults and iron chests to lock it up in!!! O rare Conservatives!—O wise Conservatives!—O honest Conservatives!"

We all thought the ceiling of the Town Hall would have toppled down on our heads from the laughter occasioned by this sally. In this admirable strain he continued for some minutes. At length, taking himself up, and falling into a tone of grave expostulation, he pulled out a copy of The Globe from his pocket, and proceeded—

"Admirably, sir, has this paper which I hold in my hand descanted on this most wicked project. These well-timed remarks, I beg leave to read. Hear the incomparable Blair. 'Had such a suggestion,' says he, 'come from General Jackson, it would have been rung through the Old Dominion as conclusive proof of all the aspirations which may have been charged to the Hero of New Orleans. See here, they would say, he wishes to put the public money directly into the palms of his friends and partisans, instead of keeping it on deposit in banks, whence it cannot be drawn, for other than public purposes, without certain detection. In such a case, we should feel that the people had just cause for alarm, and ought to give their most watchful attention to such an effort to enlarge Executive power, and put in its hands the means of corruption.' Most admirably again," continued Mr. Flam, "has this same incomparable Blair said, 'The scheme is disorganizing and revolutionary, subversive of the fundamental principles of our government, and of its practice from 1780 down to this day.' Will you, freemen of Quodlibet, gentlemen of The New Light," exclaimed Mr. Flam, "if faction should go so far as to put this odious, disorganizing, and revolutionary yoke upon the country, will you, freemen of Quodlibet, submit to it?"

"No!" shouted the ready response of sixty-four voices.

"Gentlemen, listen to the words of the Old Hero," continued Mr. Flam, with a gratulatory smile playing on his face, presenting at the same time a printed document which he carefully unfolded—"listen to that 'old man eloquent' whose mouth is never opened but to breathe the precepts of wisdom and patriotism:—I read you from his last message. In remarking upon this absurd project, the President, in this able paper, holds the following language: 'To retain the Public Revenue in the Treasury unemployed in any way, is impracticable. It is considered against the genius of our free institutions to lock up in vaults the treasure of the nation. Such a treasure would doubtless be employed at some time, as it has in other countries, when opportunity tempted ambition.' Now are you willing, men of Quodlibet," again ejaculated our eloquent representative, as he slapped the document upon the table, "are you willing, or can you consent to tolerate a proposition which is against the genius——"

"No!" thundered forth sixty-four New Lights again, before our orator had finished the sentence.

"Order, order, freemen of Quodlibet," I called out, as it was my duty to do, at this interruption. "Hear our distinguished representative to an end, before you respond."

There was a decorous silence.

"A proposition," continued Mr. Flam, "which is against the genius of our free institutions, and which would be a lure to tempt ambition to its most unholy purposes?"

The club looked at me for a sign, and I, quickly giving a nod of my head, a loud "No" ran over the whole room, like a feu de joie fired off at a militia training.

"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Flam, "one word as to the safety of these deposits. Whigs—oh that some of you were present, to mark how a plain tale shall put you down! I have here the Secretary's own report," he added, as he selected one from the bundle of documents which lay before him. "There is no need for many words here—here is Mr. Secretary himself, than whom a more pellucid, diaphanous, transparent Secretary of the Treasury—a mind of rock-crystal, a head of sunbeams, a soul, sir, of pure fountain water, that gurgles and gurgles, perpetually welling forth its unadulterated intelligence in a purling stream, of which it may be said, in the beautiful language of the poet of antiquity

'Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum'"——

Here I gave a nod, by way of signal to the club, to applaud this splendid outbreak of Ciceronian eloquence; whereat the New Lights vociferated "Bravo—three times three!" and made the house ring with their approbation—"I say, sir, I have the Secretary himself here present."

Several of the members, not being accustomed to this parliamentary language, took the orator literally, and rose to welcome the distinguished person referred to; but a word from me explained matters, and brought the club again to order.

"The Secretary, gentlemen New Lights," said Mr. Flam, adroitly availing himself of the occasion to throw off a coruscation of wit—"the Secretary lives in his reports—profound, statesmanlike, recondite and deep, his report is in my hand—it is himself! I will read you what he says upon this matter of the safety of the banks."

Here Mr. Flam read as follows, from a report dated December 12, 1834:—

"It is gratifying to reflect, however, that the credit given by the government, whether to bank paper or bank agents, has been accompanied by SMALLER LOSSES in the experience under the system of State banks in this country, at their worst periods, and under their severest calamities, than any other kind of credit the government has ever given in relation to its pecuniary transactions." "Again," he continued, turning to another page, "it is a singular fact, in praise of this description of public debtors—the selected banks—that there is not now due, on deposit, in the whole of them, which have ever stopped payment, from the establishment of the constitution to the present moment, a sum much beyond what is now due to the United States from one mercantile firm, that stopped payment in 1825 or 1826, and of whom ample security was required, and supposed to be taken under the responsibility of an oath. If we include the whole present dues to the government from discredited banks at all times, and of all kinds, whether as depositories or not, and embrace even counterfeit bills, and every other species of unavailable funds in the treasury, they will not exceed what is due from two such firms. Of almost one hundred banks, not depositories, which, during all our wars and commercial embarrassments, have heretofore failed, in any part of the Union, in debt to the government, on their bills or otherwise, it will be seen by the above table (to which Mr. Flam referred as annexed to the report) that the whole of them, except seventeen, have adjusted everything which they owed, and that the balance due from them, without interest, is less than $32,000."

"There, gentlemen New Lights of Quodlibet," said Mr. Flam, when he had finished reading these extracts, "what can be added beyond this certificate from the Secretary, of the value of our State banks? Even the lips of Whiggism are sealed before it; and nothing is left but the confession that, in all their senseless clamor against our favorite and long-tried State bank system, the course of its enemies has been but the ebullition of disappointed ambition and peevish discontent. Are you willing, I ask, to see this glorious system prostrated to the earth?"

"No!" was again the general cry.

"Are you content to see your cherished banks stripped of the confidence of the government?"

"No—never, never!" shouted the New Lights to a man.

"Then, gentlemen Quodlibetarians, radii of the New Lights, you have justified all my hopes. Your applause rewards all my toils—your support and confidence enlist all my gratitude. With emotions of heart-felt satisfaction, I bid you each good night!"

With these words, this remarkable man gathered up his documents, and, with a countenance full of smiles, retired from the midst of this circle of his devoted—yes, I may say, his idolizing friends.

[CHAPTER V.]

EXCITEMENT PRODUCED BY THE THOROUGH BLUE WHOLE TEAM—MEETING OF THE NEW LIGHT—JESSE FERRET'S AMBIDEXTERITY—INTRODUCTION OF ELIPHALET FOX TO THE CLUB—HIS EXPOSITION OF PRINCIPLES—ESTABLISHMENT OF THE QUODLIBET WHOLE HOG.

Soon after the time referred to in the last chapter—that is, when we were favored by Mr. Flam with his views on the banking system—there was a question of the most profound interest in agitation, both in the New-Light Club and out of it; that question was the establishment of a newspaper. The Quodlibetarian Democracy were, I am sorry to inform my reader, most sorely and wantonly assailed, indeed I may say insulted, by an hebdomadal sheet which, through the aid, or, more properly speaking, the abuse of the post-office (for surely it was not the original design of that institution to afford the means of corrupting the people by the dissemination of such moral poisons) was distributed among sundry of our citizens, and even put upon the files of one of our public houses. I do not scruple to name the house—that of Jesse Ferret—Jesse being at this time a little amphibious in his politics, or, in Mr. Fog's expressive language, rather fishy. The paper to which I allude was published at Thorough Blue Court-House, a perfect hotbed of contumacious opposition, situate about fifty miles due west from Quodlibet. It was called "The Thorough Blue Whole Team," and was edited by Augustus Postlethwaite Tompkinson, an inchoate lawyer, who had set up for a poet, and whose sentiments were of the most dangerous Whig complexion. This paper was constantly filled with extracts of the ravings of Whig members of Congress against our admirable system of banking, and had gone to such an extreme of rashness, as to denominate that splendid measure of the purest and wisest statesman of the age—my reader perceives I mean Mr. Benton—for the introduction of the gold currency, a humbug! But this was not all; the unprincipled editor of that reckless journal had actually so far forgotten all the decencies of civilized society, had become so callous to the cause of virtue and truth, as to launch his puny thunderbolts at the fair fame of the Hon. Middleton Flam. He was ridiculed as a pretender! he was nicknamed a charlatan!! and the unbridled license of this unsparing defamer did not stop short of denouncing him as a Federalist!!! All Quodlibet—that is, all who possessed the soul of Quodlibetarians—raised up their hands at the political impiety of this libel. A spontaneous burst of feeling indicated the deep sentiment which called for immediate action on the subject. For a full week, the New Light was in a state of paroxysm. The club met every night. Nicodemus Handy was there; Fog was there; Nim Porter was there; Snuffers and Doubleday, Doctor Winkleman and Zachary Younghusband, recently appointed postmaster of the Borough, were there. Every thorough-bred Quod, even down to Flan. Sucker, was there. Jesse Ferret, I have already said, was fishy. I regret to say it, but it is true. Jesse, bending to the suppleness of the times, and forgetting a patriot's duty, which is first and foremost above all things to stick to his party, pleaded his public calling to excuse his vacillation, and even went so far as to say that "a publican should have no politics." Oh shame, where is thy blush! Not so with Nim Porter;—his soul towered above the bar-room; he would bet all he was worth on the side of his party. Everybody in Quodlibet knows how free Nim always was with his bets.

The decisive meeting of the club took place in the dining-room of Ferret's tavern. Nicodemus Handy did not often attend the meetings of the club: we looked to him rather for head work, for he was not the best of public speakers; but on the night of this assemblage he made it a point to be present. Mr. Handy is rather a short, fat man; his head is partially bald, his face is smooth and fair, his dress was always remarked for being of the best material, put on in the neatest manner—in short, Mr. Handy is a first-rate gentleman. I am particular in noting these matters, because The Whole Team was in the habit of bragging that "all the decency" was on his side. Now I would challenge Thorough Blue Court-House, and the settlement ten miles around it—the whole region is Whig—to produce one man among them to compare either with the Hon. Middleton Flam or Nicodemus Handy. And I would take this occasion further to remark, in refutation of The Whole Team's calumny touching "all the decency," that the true Quodlibetarian Democrats have as great a respect for appearance, and as profound a spirit of assentation and regard toward a man of wealth, as the people of any country upon earth: if anything, our tip-top Quods carry rather a higher head than the richest Whigs in these parts, and any dispassionate man who will examine into the matter will say so.

Snuffers was in the chair. The members of the club did not sit down: they were too much agitated to sit down. As soon as I, in my character of Secretary, read the minutes of the preceding meeting, Mr. Handy rose, and after some very appropriate remarks delivered in a modest fashion, (in which he assured the club that he was unaccustomed to public speaking and moreover oppressed by the intensity of his feelings in regard to the recent attack on his friend, the Hon. Middleton Flam, and in a slight degree agitated in the presence of this most respectable assemblage of Quods,) came at once to the point. "Who," he asked, "was Augustus Postlethwaite Tompkinson? His name told you who he was—an aristocrat, a poet, a sentimentalizer, a dealer in fiction! What was his calling? A pander, a pimp, a professional reviler of great and good men. What was his paper? That sink of infamy—The Whole Team—twenty-four by eighteen, with a poet's corner, and an outside stuffed with a few beggarly advertisements. Would gentlemen submit to be led by the nose by a thing like that, twenty-four by eighteen?"

"Never," cried out Flanigan Sucker, who stood in the doorway, just behind Nim Porter—"will we, Nim?"

"Silence," said Mr. Snuffers.

"If gentlemen have my feelings of indignation on this subject," continued Mr. Handy, "they will concur with me in establishing a paper of our own."

"Go it, Nicodemus!" shouted Flan. Sucker, very indecorously putting in his word a second time.

Thereupon arose some confusion in the club, and Flan., being found upon examination to be muddled with liquor, was requested to retire; and not being very prompt to obey this invitation, he was turned out.

Mr. Handy then proceeded. "Gentlemen," said he, "a paper we must have, and I feel happy in the opportunity to introduce to your acquaintance a good friend of our cause, who is here present to-night, and who, under the auspices of this club, is willing to undertake the responsible duty of supplying this so much desiderated object. I beg leave to present to you Mr. Eliphalet Fox, a gentleman long connected with the press in a neighboring State, and who is prepared to submit to you his scheme."

Upon this a stranger, who had been seated in a back part of the room, wrapped up in a green camlet cloak with plaid lining, which I may add had apparently seen much service, stepped forward, and, disrobing himself of this outer garment, stood full before the President. He was a thin, faded little fellow, whose clothes seemed to be somewhat too large for him. His eye was gray and rather dull, his physiognomy melancholy, his cheek sunken, his complexion freckled, his coat blue, the buttons dingy, his hair sandy, and like untwisted rope. The first glance at the person of this new-comer gave every man of the club the assurance that here was an editor indeed. A whisper of approbation ran through the crowd, and from that moment, as Mr. Doubleday afterward said to me, we felt assured that we had the man we wanted.

"Mr. President," said he, in a feeble and sickly voice, "my name is Fox. I am in want of employment. Sir," he added, gritting his teeth and taking an attitude, "if the rancor of my soul, accumulated by maltreatment, set on edge by disappointment, indurated by time, entitle me to claim your confidence, then, sir, my claim stands number one. If a thorough knowledge, sir, of the characteristic traits of Federalism, long acquaintance with its designs, persecution, sir, from its votaries, a deep experience of its black ingratitude; if days of toil spent in its service, nights of feverish anxiety protracted in ruminating over its purposes; if promises violated, hopes blasted, labors unrewarded, may be deemed a stimulus to hatred—then, sir, am I richly endowed with the qualifications to expose the enemies of Quodlibetarian Democracy. I am a child, sir, of sorrow: the milk of my nature has been curdled by neglect. Mine is a history of talents underrated, sensibilities derided, patriotism spurned, affluence, nay competence, withheld. The world has turned me aside. I have no resting place on the bosom of my mother. Society, like a demon, pursues me. Writs in the hands of the sheriff, judgments on the docket, fi. fas. and ca. sas. track my footsteps. No limitation runs in my favor: the scire facias, ever ready, revives the inhuman judgment, and my second shirt—my first is in rags—is stripped from my body to glut the avarice of my relentless pursuers. Thank God, I have at last found a friend in that distinguished man who has been so ruthlessly, so recently assailed, by that fledgling of the aristocracy, Augustus Postlethwaite Tompkinson. Yes, sir, in the Hon. Middleton Flam I have found a friend. He has given me letters to this benevolent gentleman, Mr. Handy; he has recommended my establishment here; he promises to co-operate with this respectable club in giving me a foothold among you. With her Flams and her Handys, Quodlibet is destined to an enviable influence in this great Republic." (Here he was interrupted by loud cheers.) "My scheme is, Mr. President, with the aid of this club, and that of the benefactors I have named, forthwith to start The Quodlibet Whole Hog. It shall take a decided and uncompromising stand against The Thorough Blue Whole Team, (here he was again arrested by cheers;) pledged to contradict every word uttered by that vile print, (cheers;) to traduce and bring down its editor by the most systematic disparagement, (cheers;) to disprove all Whig assertions; unfailingly to take the opposite side on all questions; industriously to lower the standing of the members of the Whig party, (immense cheers;) through thick and thin, good report and evil report, for better and for worse, to defend and sustain the administration of the new President, who is about to take his seat, that incomparable Democrat of the genuine Quodlibetarian stamp, Martin Van Buren, (at this point the cheering continued for some moments, with such violence that the speaker had to suspend his remarks;) and finally, sir, to commend, exalt, and illustrate the character and pretensions of our unrivaled friend Mr. Flam, (immense cheering,) giving utterance to his sentiments, preponderance to his opinions, authority to his advice on all proper and suitable occasions, (loud cheering for a long time.) In short, sir, The Whole Hog shall be what its name imports, a faithful mirror of the Democracy of Quodlibet. Its publication shall be weekly; its size, twenty-six by twenty, having the advantage over the Whole Team by full two inches each way. There, sir, is an outline of my sentiments and proposed paper." Mr. Fox concluded this address in the midst of a congratulatory uproar, altogether unprecedented in the club.

Seizing upon the enthusiasm of the moment, and being rather fearful that Fog would attempt to make a speech, which that gentleman's condition would have rendered extremely improper at this hour, Mr. Handy immediately offered a resolution for the establishment of the Whole Hog, and its adoption as the organ of the party, on the principles proposed by Mr. Fox. This was carried by acclamation; and the members without further discussion adjourned to the bar-room, where Nim Porter offered a bet—and not finding any one to take him up, continued to offer it during the evening—of fifty dollars to twenty-five, or one hundred to fifty, that Eliphalet Fox would run Augustus Postlethwaite Tompkinson's Whole Team out of Quodlibet in six months from that day:—that there would not be but two copies of the Whole Team taken in the Borough, and that one of them would be Michael Grant's out at the Hogback:—"for," said Nim, with an oath, which I will not repeat—"I can see it in that Liphlet Fox's eye; if he isn't a gouger when his bile's fresh, there aint nothing in Lavender on Physiology, or Fowler on the Shape of Heads."